The Captain's Legacy
by Upeasterner
Summary: Mrs. Muir is dead, the Captain vanished from the house. But her spirit lives on in the form of a special legacy from Captain Gregg.
1. Chapter 1

"Facts are the enemy of truth" – Miguel de Cervantes

There has been much speculation about my mother's life. Even now, forty-odd years after she first drafted "The Captain," readers still write the publisher who faithfully and very profitably reprints her novels every few years. The Boston-based company direct-deposits the sizable royalty checks into her estate's account and each month courteously forwards fan e-mail (most of it from women) to me.

They all want to know the same thing: Who was the ghostly seaman based upon, really? Was he a figment of my gifted mother's imagination or an ectoplasmic reality for a stunning yet deserving every-woman; the ideal father we all would wish for our children?

Why did my beautiful, widowed mother, never remarry? Her patrician features smile levelly yet very unselfconsciously from the back of over one million books, her chiseled Teutonic features topped by emerald eyes and a carefully coiffed sixtyish bob. If she wasn't so beautiful, I wonder if anybody would have cared?

I suppose it's a testament to her Grace Kelly looks as well as my mother's witty but emotive prose style that anyone in 2010 would consider a ghostly presence remotely viable. The Internet seems to flicker like a ghostly flame before fans, who frequently post theories about ways my elegant, hard-headed mother could have lived with an opinionated spirit who cheerfully and knowingly exuded testosterone with every jaunty nautical step of his afterlife.

Even in the Vietnam-obsessed early 1970s, the public evidently had a need-to-know. An intrepid Boston Globe Sunday magazine reporter who once stalked mom around Schooner Bay and from the rocky crags of the beach near our house wrote: "This most eligible widow often can be seen strolling the roiling shores of Coastal Maine -- chatting cheerfully to herself. Occasionally she pauses to smile upwards, as if stopping to consider the opinion of some unseen presence. Unfortunately, the taciturn Down Easterners of her community exhibit that famous New England rectitude when pressed about their most famous resident. Few, in fact, will even acknowledge Schooner Bay has an eclectic, 100-year-old seaside cottage, built by a retired mariner. Claymore Gregg, the only known living Gregg descendant blanches, when asked directly. Certainly, this city clerk is no Daniel Gregg. As for the beautiful Carolyn Muir, the PTO officer turned romance writer simply shrugs when asked why she chooses to remain obviously alone on the rocky coast of one of the country's most desolate (some would say Godforsaken) stretches of beach. 'But I'm so busy with my children!' she answers sincerely, if unconvincingly. "Fantasies are for my readers."

Captain Gregg, of course, watched this whole interview from just a few feet away. "I don't think your mother is actually aware of how beautiful she is," he opined distractedly, as the newsman barraged my mother with questions while a photographer snapped away. I, of course, could only smile wanly. What did I know? I was 12 or 13 when "The Captain" was first published. My mother was, well, my mother and I had just arrived at that charming point in life where she could possibly do no right. I found her hair-sprayed bob way out of synch with the long, straight look of the times and was terribly afraid my friends might learn anyone actually cared that she had a life, let alone a spectral boyfriend. Recently, I'd begun to notice strange looks from mothers of friends who whispered about that eccentric Carolyn Muir. I don't know whether they were relieved to read Schooner Bay's most eligible widow really wasn't interested in their husbands or worried Captain Gregg, the town's most-famous invisible resident, had gone too far this time with his well-documented haunting. Still, the cocoon of eccentricity that spun tightly around isolated coastal communities in those days lovingly enveloped my brother and me. We grew up cared for and accepted by people who would never betray our family to the outside world as much as they might harbor their own theories about things that went bump in the night at Gull Cottage.

Today, I'm an established psychiatrist in Portland. I understand the interior and sometimes unbelievable lives of my troubled patients. As accepting as I am of their realities, I should know better than to actually confess that during my own childhood and early adulthood, my mother unofficially married a man born well over 100 years before she and enjoyed a romance so all-consuming she never really needed anyone else or, for that matter, validation or acknowledgement from any of her peers. The few friends who knew, knew better than to tell tales. As for family, only Grandma and Grandpa Williams were invited into the circle, so as to finally squelch unending concern about "Caro's happiness." Social snobs that they were, mom had little doubt they'd be talking soon to anyone in Philadelphia, although she told me years later that Grandma had idly speculated about whether there'd be any more grandchildren.

Jonathan still lives at Gull Cottage and actually writes for a living. He thinks their improbable love story makes incredible copy, and that reader speculation should be encouraged as good for sales. Much to my professional chagrin, he occasionally fans the 'did-she/didn't-she' flames of romantic speculation. "What do you expect from a shrink?" he once told the Hartford Courant, to my great embarrassment. "Did she suggest that believing in the possibility of ghosts says more about you and her readers than it does my mother? I believe Jung would suggest her novels actually have a psycho-sexual subtext linked to the fact she and the Captain shared a 'cabin' together."

Then he laughed, the reporter noted, before adding: "I don't think anyone could have invented a better father for my sister or me even if she never enjoyed a Freudian sexual reawakening."

Fortunately, Jonathan doesn't give many interviews. When he does, he's usually somewhat muzzled by publicists our publisher conferences in on three-way calls about "The Captain." These phone interviews have increased since the book garnered traction on college campuses as a retro-feminist novel about a prominent society widow struggling for independence after the death of her philandering husband. Calls from student newspapers and scholarly journals are on the rise. The publisher wants to keep it vague. "Please keep your answers nuanced," a publicist once intoned. "People prefer unrequited longing and sexual tension to the real thing. They want their lovers separated and suffering."

So Jonathan usually sticks to the script and lets readers decide whether he's another writer with an over-the-top imagination or heir to one of the most beautiful love stories of the late 20th century. Readers also like to hear about the supposed ghost's sometimes amusing interventions in mortal life, his penchant for 150-year-old seagoing swearwords, his favorite cigars, and the adoring gazes and the looks of tenderness that enveloped this blustery apparition every time he materialized around my 'mother.'

Jonathan loved, still loves – more than almost anyone in the world – the Captain and poignantly clings to any chance to keep his memory alive even with anonymous readers who never met him. But he never disrespects our mother or the Captain. We protect as fiercely as her readers the Captain's special relationship with Carolyn Muir, which tethered him to our lives for over 30 very special years and ended only with her death, at age 70.

We weren't there when mom passed away unexpectedly yet peacefully from an undetected infection. Jonathan and his kids were vacationing in Vermont while his wife visited her parents. Only Elizabeth, Martha's trusted niece, was home at the time. She called my office in Portland, crying quietly. Just 20 minutes ago, she said so softly I could barely understand her, the front door burst open as if a great burst of wind swept suddenly through the house, which she noticed was suddenly cold and unnaturally quiet. The walkway was empty, guarded silently, as always, by the stone lions. By instinct, Elizabeth said she ran to the Captain's cabin, as we jokingly called it, where the door to the room stood ajar, still quivering from some unseen gale. The windows were closed, much to her surprise. And there on the bed, with a smile on her face, lay my mother, peacefully on her side, eyes open and unblinking, one arm stretched toward her Captain's telescope. There was no sign of the master, Elizabeth said. "Aunt Martha warned me it would be like this," she sobbed. "As much as we loved the Captain and he cared for us, he wasn't here for us, really. She always said he was only allowed to stay for your mother – something about unfinished business."

It may sound maudlin, but both Jonathan and I and even the grandkids know this to be true. We were grateful just to have had the Captain in our lives, even if it meant celebrating two lives and one death simultaneously. We took comfort, not offense, in knowing our mother's real living had just begun and that both she and the captain now awaited us on the "other side." My mother's may have been the first funeral in history where there were no doubts about the dearly departed. We buried her in one of the long, 19th-century gowns the captain loved so much, with red, pink and white roses atop her coffin. Few in Schooner Bay were surprised when we laid her to rest next to Daniel Gregg and erected a new monument above them both. Always one for the grand gesture, Jonathan inscribed "The Heart Knows What the Mind Cannot See" on the granite, words he said he'd seen in a movie about another sort of improbable love "between a psychiatrist and her patient," he told me wryly.

Two weeks later, as I rummaged through mother's papers, I wondered if my fingers would find what my mind suspected had to exist – the journals I knew my mother faithfully kept since the day we arrived in Gull Cottage in 1968. Like many writers, she referred to them as her "day-books" and used them to note bits of dialogue or happenings which piqued her interest. Or so I thought until the morning I found an envelope barely sticking out from behind the Captain's portrait.

"Candy my dear," read the letter obviously penned by the Captain. "Please check the false bottom of the black trunk in the wheelhouse to find your Mother's journals, which I know you and Jonathan will so curiously seek after we both are gone. Edit them judiciously and publish them, as a sequel to "The Captain." You may tone them down, to suit your mother's privacy, but do not edit anything which speaks directly to my virility or legacy as New England's strongest man."

I didn't know it was possible to laugh and cry at the same time. That was so like Captain Gregg.

"Please use the proceeds as you and Jonathan see fit. And, my dear, please limit Jonathan's involvement in this project. He may be the writer, but you are the gifted one who truly understands the ways of the heart. My dear, I have not read them myself, but trust you will know what to do with them so that our story may continue to benefit the Muir family."

And so, my own dear readers, consider yourselves officially introduced to a special sequel to "The Captain," a companion novella ,one which you may consider fact or fiction, depending upon your own beliefs and preferences. As for what did or didn't make this latest book, you will have to wait until 25 years after the deaths of both myself and my brother Jonathan. My mother's papers will remain sealed, until that time at the University of Maine. Meanwhile, you can assume that in no way has this book been edited to either enhance or impugn the Captain's less-than-understated masculinity. No literary license could ever improve on this New England original.

Please be kind to this, my mother's first and only non-fictional work. This time, the facts are the truth.


	2. Chapter 2

Editor's note: It was not my mother's habit to make daily entries to her journal

**July 31, 1968**

Gull Cottage at last. I would say the ghost of Captain Gregg is our biggest surprise here but no, it's the silence. The roar of the sea and the silence, the privacy of being far from my inlaws and parents. Such a wondrous gift, a pleasant surprise. The phone no longer rings incessantly and I know to get here, the relatives would take I-95 up. Driving through New York City is no easy task. It's just the children, Martha and me and the roar of the Atlantic, or should I say din. Oh, and of course, the Captain. But he's not noisy and seldom intrusive. We're trying to make this situation work, for both of us, and he's given me a large leeway. When we are together, it's almost companionable and his voice is as soothing as the sea below. Although we certainly have had our rows, but when he speaks, it's like a balm on my conscious. His 19th-century attitudes about honor, and protection of the fairer sex is both a relief and a source of strength. Relief because although I think I'm somewhat attracted to him, there can never be anything between us. He's an illusion, after all. But his patient presence and insistence on an almost ship-like schedule provide some meaning and structure to my life.

I awaken, ready to work, spurred out of my/his(?) bed by the 6 a.m. opening of the windows by his telescope and the doors leading to my incredibly beautiful patio. Hard to lie in bed depressed, as I did in Philadelphia, when the most opinionated, charming, bellicose yet caring and devastatingly handsome spectral man in the world materializes in my room with a cup of coffee and an air of pomposity.

Maybe we are both two lost souls. Me on the run from bad karma, as the hippies say. He from the spectacular loneliness which must have been engendered by his lengthy solitude in a dusty, remote home. Maybe for him it was like the Kafka tale about the man who turns into a giant insect causing his horrified family to eschew all contact. One day, you're a semi-wealthy sea captain used to being in full command of vessels and men on an ocean that can swallow you as easily as it blows you to your destination. The next second, without reason or explanation, you're a ghost who terrifies everyone around you. For all his bluster, I think the Captain welcomed our arrival.

Profound alienation. An affliction that plagues us both.

I feel relief in that there are no reminders of Bobby Muir here.

Enrolled the kids at Schooner Bay elementary here. They're backwards but exceptionally pleasant and friendly and NOBODY knows about my past, my family, and my indignity. I know they're wondering about us living in this house.


	3. Chapter 3

August 2, 1968

"Me and the Ghost Upstairs." Funny. When I was a little girl, my grandmother used to play that song. I loved hearing Fred Astaire sing it as much as I loved watching him dance with Ginger Rogers. Of course I had no understanding, then, of what it literally means to have a ghost upstairs, with all the unspoken implications that presence manifests, so to speak.

I think spiritualist Madame Tibaldi summed it up best when she declaimed Gull Cottage has a "Strong, proud, predatory male who says you're mine, and has a way of making us love it–!"

And I do. For the first time in years, I feel safe, wanted, feminine and OK with the world. At the same time, I'm afraid. Captain Gregg can be quite an overwhelming experience. We're both a little strong-willed. Right now, the battle (which I think I'm winning) involves the Captain treating me as an equal partner in the household, not a hothouse flower to be cosseted by Victorian standards. He was appalled that I wore a bathing suit to the beach yesterday and brought me a robe after he spied on us through that blasted telescope. I didn't know he could transport material objects, to use Star Trek lingo. I retaliated by slipping on shorts over my suit, and driving into town with my bathing suit for a top. I didn't get out, of course, but how was he to know? Martha thought I'd lost all sense of decency. The Captain pursed his lips and shook his fist at the sky. I saw him in the rear view mirror.

On the whole, I'd say the Captain and I are friends in equal measure but I'm confused by our relationship. Confused and afraid it could blow me off course, to use the Captain's language. To ports unknown.

Oddly enough, he's a very physical presence. When he materializes in a room, he's impossible to ignore and seems almost tangible, as if I could reach out and touch him if I wanted to. He's an alpha male and when we're together, he just dominates in a pleasant way that I really don't mind unless, of course, he's rambling on about "women" and their place in society.

I wonder how Captain Gregg feels. Maybe he, too is afraid. The looks he gives me and the tenderness in his voice when he acquiesces to our modernity or speaks eloquently of his life in the last century confuse and scare me, but somehow I relish them.

He's just an illusion and I must treat this relationship accordingly. There's no one I can talk to about this. No one who would believe me. Or maybe they would.

Candy and I went shopping today and I could feel, if not see, the whispers and stares. Ed Peavey is vouching for us, but I think that's because he secretly likes Martha. I caught Candy's new friend's mother pointing at us and talking under her breath to Norrie, proprietor of a lovely seaside restaurant where we lunched. I wonder if the women in Schooner Bay know about the Captain. I'm too new and too afraid of the topic to broach it with anyone – not even Claymore.

Lined up two articles to write. Maine is such a popular tourist destination that the New York Times still wants summery articles about things to do over Labor Day weekend here. And the Boston Glove seeks an article about deepwater harbors like Schooner Bay. There is an excellent historical society in Portland, and Claymore has kindly put me in touch with all of the junior leagues on the coast. I may have to travel and my phone bill will be high but the editors promise to recompense me for my troubles. I hope I've picked the right profession. I'm scared to death I will not be able to support us on a meager writer's income.


	4. Chapter 4

For a writer, I think I gushed too much in yesterday's journal entry

**1968**

For a writer, I think I gushed too much and too girlishly in yesterday's journal entry. That's what Captain Gregg and too much fresh, salty air does to me. Maybe it's what lack of sex can do, too…make any body attractive?

Today, I'm writing obits for The Beacon and have two articles about city council due. Not that Mark pays very much – but being a reporter in a small town provides some measure of respectability even if the locals are speculating about my spectral love life! I much prefer lengthy Sunday magazine pieces for the Boston Globe (they pay 25 cents per word) and writing silly articles for national women's publications. Female frippery, the Captain calls it. Even in 1968, that's about as good as it gets for a woman. I count myself lucky, though, for my talent with words and especially my Philadelphia pedigree. It does open doors. Several of my sorority sisters who never married now work for East Coast publications.

I'm toying with the idea of writing a book, although I have no idea what it would be about. Perhaps I can coerce the Captain into two glasses of his precious Madeira this Wednesday (or is it Thursday?) and the mild buzz might disinhibit me enough to summons the courage to ask his opinion. I mean, would he think me capable of such an endeavor? I love the way he speaks, in the cadences of a century gone by. There are no contractions in his speaking patterns, and mellifluous prose rolls off his tongue like the gentle swaying of the ships he used to captain. Is sway the right word? If I could capture some of his language, salty and all, peppered with euphemisms and alliterative insults that haven't been heard in over 100 years – although I'm sure that even in his prime, Captain Gregg was an original – I think we'd have a great-selling book.

And so does his "nephew" Claymore. The two dual in an eternal yingyang of familial love and hate. Captain Gregg tortures poor Claymore to the best of his ghostly powers while protecting me from "the bilge rat's" ongoing schemes to make more money off me and Gull Cottage. Yet there is an underlying mutuality (for lack of a better word, I think I've had too much coffee) between them. I shouldn't, but sometimes I wonder if Claymore bats for the other team, as they euphemistically say. He's slightly effeminate and seems to have grown attached to me in a mild fashion that makes me feel sorry and slightly sympathetic and protective toward him all at once. When he says "Mrs. Muir," in his two-syllable fashion, weak chin and lower lip sucked inside his face, I can't but help wonder what life must have been like for him, growing up under the stern visage of the manliest man I have ever know. I can't but resist defending him in front of the Captain, who tries to intimidate the poor man with what I deem temper squalls which serve no purpose other than convincing the locals something's amiss at Gull Cottage.

So far, I've only become acquainted with the local eccentrics who seem the stock-in-trade of small, coastal New England towns. Wonder if there's a story there for Yankee Magazine? Perhaps it would be possible to go beyond the stereotypes to depict them with real sympathy and affection. Ed Peavey, who's growing increasingly fond of Martha, is case-in-point with his straight-faced equivocations and awkward angularity. But buried behind that horsy face is a real intelligence that speaks to the self-sufficiency and hardiness of these people. Who else could live on a bay surrounded by water and cliffs?

I hope I have the same endurance this winter when winds buffet Gull Cottage at gale force and snow lies 10 inches deep in the walkway. Driving up the cliffside to the house is going to be dicey but maybe Captain Gregg can lend an invisible hand.

Jonathan was up in my cabin today, looking for pirate ships when he spotted a strange woman walking on my, I mean our, beach. Out of idle curiosity and a desire to procrastinate, I wandered down the stairs painstakingly carved out of the rock to the beach. Turns out she's a professor at Harvard University who specializes in third-world literature (imagine, a woman!) Such accomplishments. Makes me feel like a hack. We chatted for a good two hours, standing there, before I invited her in for tea. I was so absorbed in what she was saying I forgot to make a few preemptive comments about Ghost Gregg before we arrived. Naturally, as we arrived at the kitchen door, she said she'd heard about our haunted cottage and laughingly inquired as to whether I'd ever encountered the handsome (yes, even she was not immune to his magnificent painting) Captain Daniel Gregg she'd heard so much about at her bed-and-breakfast.

I laughed subtly even as a window flew open and the white curtains fluttered suspiciously despite the total lack of any breeze. Sometimes that man gets too carried away. Fortunately, I didn't have to mumble 'Captain' (emphasis on 'tain' I am always reduced to sputtering it out with accent on the last syllable) before Professor Elizabeth Jones proceeded to share with me there's a new Brazilian book about a woman who sleeps with a ghost. It was recently published, by one Jorge Amado. It's called "Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands" and it's all about a sexually needy widow whose second husband is a wonderful but only a once-a-week kind of guy. Elizabeth chuckled and shared with me that the ghost of Dona Flor's Carnival-loving husband returns to this world at her subconscious bidding to share her bed when the pharmacist isn't around.

Elizabeth said it's wonderful, she's translating it from Portuguese to English and promises to send me a copy. According to her, Brazilians believe in this kind of thing as they have a dual spirituality that mixes Catholicism with African spirit life (Negro slaves were the first to reach the coast).

Ghosts are a mystery to me. I never believed in them until I arrived here, at Gull Cottage. Perhaps Senor Amado offers a few pointers in his book. Better him than the Captain.

Imagine, dear diary/journal/waste-of-time that you share your home with a ghostly male who happens to be a force-of-nature. In the still, quiet hours when Jonathan and Candy are asleep and Martha's happily tucked in her room, talking to Ed Peavey or enjoying the racket of her TV, the Captain and I sit for hours, our voices a low, gentle murmur, falling softly on my ears just like the waves below. It's intimacy of a different sort, I suppose, different from Dona Flor's but just as necessary. Maybe there are possible realities in our impossible situation.


	5. Chapter 5

Trouble started where it often seems to these days – on the playground

**Aug. 27, 1968**

I haven't written in so long, but today this journal is a relief and a refuge and I sink into my writing as though into a soft, comforting pillow. Today was horrible. I'm sipping a glass of cognac as I write…I'm in my nightgown now and I know the Captain won't dare materialize when he thinks my modesty is at all compromised.

Trouble started where it often begins – on the playground. Jonathan doesn't mind too much when the girls call Candy a boy. Candy actually likes it, huge tomboy that she's become. If it's ok with Candy it's ok with Jonathan. But the latest playground invective, hurled from the vicinity of the monkey bars where the little beasts congregate, did not sit well with either Candy or Jonathan.

If I understood what Jonathan tried to tell me after school, between sobs, it sounds like Peter Simpson and his followers teased Jonathan about their mom being a "ghost-lover." I think this started yesterday, but Jonathan was too mortified to tell either myself or the Captain. Things must have escalated in the lunch room today, because Jonathan slugged Keith Martin, resulting in two black eyes and an embarrassed if irritated phone call from the principal, Mr. Hampton, who already thinks Jonathan is difficult. As I drove to the school to rescue him, I smiled to myself. A "ghost lover?" The phone lines must really be burning up in Schooner Bay. After all, I was married to the biggest philanderer in Philadelphia. Local gossip is something I can handle. Secretly I am very pleased with my daughter's spunk. Candy evidently joined the melee and landed a few well-timed punches on Peter Simpson's face.

Jonathan refused to ride the bus. I arrived at the school. I glared at Mr. Hampton and packed Jonathan into the car. He sobbed all the way home, holding a melting cold compress to his swollen eye. His little chest heaved, and I heard him mumble words like "blast" and "scoundrel."

"Captain Gregg 'n me will fix this, Mom," he mumbled as we arrived in front of our haunted refuge. I felt so sorry to be the root of any problem for my children. As we pulled up to Gull Cottage, the Captain materialized at the gate. Jonathan must have elicited some latent parental qualities in him. Instead of his blustery, quick-to-anger self, he spoke tenderly to "the lad" and actually admired his black eye. I looked askance at them both and was rewarded with a male kiss-off.

"Madam, I think this is a matter best handled between the lad and myself. Jonathan, if your mother permits, I propose we retreat to the Wheelhouse for a man-to-man talk about how to best deal with these hooligans."

I didn't know what to say and I certainly couldn't figure out how the Captain knew so much until I remembered Martha had a direct hotline to the local school. One of her church friends works as a secretary there, probably for Mr. Hampton. And Captain Gregg is a notorious eavesdropper. They make a great duo; it's a very good thing Martha knows nothing of the Captain yet.

At any rate, I suppose maybe I was relieved the Captain took over at this point. And he stopped just before he and Jonathan entered the front door. Turning, he gave me a gaze so intimate it made me wish for a second the rumors were true. I am embarrassed to say all I could manage was a few eyelash battings back. He makes me feel like an 18-year-old sometimes. Jonathan caught the look, too, and broke out into a grin.

It didn't occur to me that Captain Gregg could be anything more than a pleasant counterpoint to my quiet days in Maine. I must have been so wrapped up in working and worrying about our meager funds that I overlooked the parental qualities in his relationship with Jonathan, the real ghost-lover.

I think this is the first time either the Captain or I have had to confront the implications our relationship (if I dare call it that) has on the children. Now I feel as though we will be forced into some kind of defensive posture. I really don't need or want any other company besides the Captain's. How do the children read this? I've always been notoriously aloof and private, except to them. How is Captain Gregg changing this for them? Could or should he be allowed to assume a father-like presence? What about me? Jonathan saw me flush in the walkway this afternoon. And he was glad!

Unfortunately, I may not get to the bottom of this until tomorrow. I thought Jonathan and the Captain would be down by now, but they're still up there. I brought Jonathan a tray, and they both gave me oblique stares that made me feel as though I were trespassing on sacred male territory. Jonathan's staying home from school tomorrow.

Blast you, Captain Gregg. Things just weren't supposed to be so complicated here.


	6. Chapter 6

It was indeed several days before I could speak with Captain Gregg privately

Aug. 29, 1968

It was indeed several days before I spoke with Captain Gregg privately, and I decided it would be wise for both of us to address the children.

Candy and Jonathan required our immediate attention if the playground harassment was to die…a natural death so to speak. With the Captain in the living room tonight, I explained the basic adult facts-of-life. No, they could never mention the Captain nor confirm his presence to anyone at school. That was general family policy. I added I was sure they didn't feel like sharing Captain Gregg anyway. They laughed nervously. Although it was hard for them to understand, the Captain gently explained it is better to ignore rumors than to react to them. Otherwise they don't go away. "Don't complain, never explain," he advised. Tough talk for any child to handle, but I didn't see any other way around it. In several days, I promised Jonathan, his classmates would move on to something else and the rumor mill would die down. (Privately, I couldn't imagine my so-called sex life fascinating Schooner Bay mothers for all that long. To fuel the gossip, they'd have to admit amongst themselves they believe in ghosts. No one in Schooner Bay is prepared to admit to an actual sighting of the famed town spectre.)

Captain Gregg did suggest to Candy that if trouble persisted, she turn to Penelope what's-her-name and suggest, "If you believe Gull Cottage is really haunted, why don't you come spend the night? You can sleep in the attic by yourself. It's pretty dark up there and we do hear noises but I think it's just the wind." He winked, and Jonathan and Candy giggled, immediately thinking of ways they could torment any takers with rattling chains and ominous thunder (courtesy of the Captain, of course).The case seemed pretty much closed until, as they headed for the stairs, Jonathan turned to ask the Captain, "Is Mom a ghost-lover?"

With a firm, "Good night, lad. That's enough for one night," the Captain dispatched Jonathan to his bed.

Strangely, the Captain kept a studied distance and did not appear in my room that night. I spent the next day in teleconferences with Philadelphia editors who needed an additional 400 words to make copy fit for an article on how the new feminism affects every day mothers. I found it rather ironic that I, a self-supporting single mother of two, was tackling the task independently while quoting boring women who chirped they would rather raise children than do anything else. No bra burning for my readers!

The next evening, Captain Gregg did return to his usual "night watch," which includes a private stay with me in our cabin. He fussed around the room, fidgeting with his telescope and commenting on the Fall temperatures outside, before sitting opposite me on the sofa in front of the fireplace. I put my book down, and asked him if something was bothering him. His features softened. After 100 years of despairing solitude, I know he likes having his feelings recognized, even though he's fond of denying them.

"Madam," he began as usual, "permission to avoid our typical bluster and arguments requested." That got my attention. We never addressed any issue directly, although our increasing companionship contributed to a growing honesty between us both. We no longer hid behind feigned anger unless, of course, one of us felt like sparring in a game of verbal one-upmanship.

Before I could respond, "Permission granted…I guess," he continued: "It is my never-to-be-underestimated opinion that we have only bought time with the children. In absence of an appropriate living suitor for you, it is indeed natural for them to speculate on the nature of our…relationship. Candy is getting older, and will no longer take for granted the reasons I am privileged to unfettered access to our cabin, while she must always knock. And, she will look to you for guidance about the nature of male-female relationships. I am trying to understand modern views on femininity and to belay my "old-fashioned," as you would describe them, feelings on this matter.

"Jonathan," I interjected, "will likely seek your counsel on things a boy doesn't want to ask his mother." The Captain squared his jaw but couldn't keep from smiling, no matter how resolute he tried to appear.

"Madam." He leaned forward. If I'd reached out, I could have touched his beard. For a fleeting moment I wondered what it would be like to cup his face with my hand, then lean forward and kiss him softly on the lips. The fire hissed and crackled, startling me and causing the Captain to rise and throw another log onto the blaze.

This was the first time either of us has broached this topic, and I do give the Captain kudos for showing more courage than I. "Captain," I began, "I am definitely a ghost-liker." I blushed and stared at his broad back before he turned, and his eyes caught mine and held them in a visual embrace. Time stopped and I fell into the cornflower blue, blinking back a growing confusion.

"Brandy, my dear?" he queried, breaking our long communion and reaching for the sifter. "Absolutely." Perhaps maybe, after a glass or two of liquid fire, I supposed I might gather the courage to continue that thought. With the help of our shared aperitif, we fell into tense silence broken only by the sound of crackling wood in the hearth. The liquor spread throughout my body, providing warmth and succor I could not muster on my own. I poured myself a second glass, ignoring the Captain's raised eyebrow and unspoken opinions about women and ladylike consumption of 'men's drink.' I emptied my glass halfway and to my horror, before I even realized I was speaking, before the words formed in my head, "I suppose, hypothetically speaking, I might become a ghost-lover were it possible – " and I stopped, embarrassed and horrified.

"Suppose," the Captain began, then stopped, stood and faced the fire. "Suppose you were to learn that when you moved into Gull Cottage in late summer, I felt it best to present myself as an illusion only, incapable of touch and the potential emotional consequences of such an ability. Would you have remained at Gull Cottage, happy to engage in Wednesday Madeira with a spirit capable of …?" He remained facing the flames, while a different kind of heat rose within my body.

I lowered my head and rested my face in the palm of my hands. Daniel's presence was too tangible. Incredible, to think he was really just a ghost. Sometimes, there are just things you somehow know, before you can form a single thought. I knew in that instant I would never love or want to love another man. Nor, need any other companionship or counsel besides his. Absolutely, I thought.

"Certainly," I blushed, stammering. "Probably, maybe, I don't know. This is all so sudden, hypothetically speaking.

The Captain looked visibly relieved. "I thought you might be angered by such a hypothetical situation."

And he dematerialized.

They say you are every one and every thing in your dreams. But that night, as I lay tucked beneath a century-old down comforter, there were two people in my dreams.


	7. Chapter 7

Sept. 2, 1968

I wonder by my troth, what thou and I

Did, till we loved, were we not weaned till then?

But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?

Or snorted we in the seven sleepers den?

T'was so; But this, all pleasures fancies be.

If ever any beauty I did see,

Which I desired and got, t'was but a dream of thee.

And now good morrow to our waking souls,

Which watch not one another out of fear;

For love, all love of other sights controls,

And makes one little room, an everywhere.

- _John Donne, as read by Daniel Gregg 9/1/1968 – TO ME!_

Odd, but Daniel has yet to continue with his what-ifs. And I still have no idea what he said to Jonathan in the attic. It's almost as if they're sharing a state secret. Whatever it is, I'm glad Jonathan and the Captain have formed their own, unique bond. Poor Jonathan is surrounded by women, and I am immensely grateful to Daniel for filling the breach. Yet I'm a little miffed my son has beaten me to the punch – an unequivocally committed, long-term relationship with the strongest character I have ever obsessed about. Dear diary, if I may, thankfully Jonathan has no memory of his wife-beating, philandering father. The Philadelphia police and our family doctor guaranteed the truth will never come out. It is not a legacy I would wish on anyone, nor a secret that can ever be shared. I think it's a blessing my son's need for a strong male figure has attached itself to the Captain, a man full of integrity despite his own high opinion of himself.

Which brings me to the poem (above). What did I do until we moved to Gull Cottage? There were no country or other pleasures. My life was a nightmare, a living hell. No dreams of anything. Life in Philadelphia was horrific, and I had no desire to move in with my parents or risk losing Candy to the lawyer-filled Muir family. Instead I began freelancing just two months after Candy was born, creating a scandal in the process. My plan was to leave Bobby eventually, once I had enough work.

The features editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer hinted at a fulltime job in the very near future. Why he liked my soporific stories about high-society women, I'll never know. Perhaps the Inquirer was more interested in my high-brow connections than in my writing style. Either that, or Walter Tallis knew the truth about my husband and found me a good writer with great connections and a lousy marriage. Walter also was a homosexual, so I knew the attraction was not physical, a strange relief as my most fervent desire was never to be touched again, by any man (living, that is). I am constantly told I am beautiful but I am jealous of plain women who are judged for character alone. Just to be left alone…

How different my life would have been, had fate not intervened in the form of unwelcome advances from my husband. Several of my friends reported they'd seen him in the business district, arm-in-arm with the same blonde on two occasions. I was livid although I hardly cared for him anymore. Circumstances were just so unfair. I was trapped. The next week, I moved into our guest bedroom, telling him we were through. That night, or was it early morning? I awoke, and Bobby lay next to me. I froze, thinking he would leave me alone if he thought I was sleeping. It was as if he didn't care. As they say in novels, he "forced" himself upon me. It was the last time I ever lay with him. It was the night Jonathan was conceived.

Bobby "died" just two years later. I finally took the Inquirer up on its offer. There, I flourished, the children safely ensconced with Martha. My editors even let me work the city beat, covering council meetings and school issues. I think the editors felt a woman could be less intrusive but a little snoopier than a man. The New York Times was so impressed they mentioned me in an article about "the new American mother." But, back at the Inquirer, I was refused entry to that big male bastion, the police beat. The police beat was off limits, judged too hard and ambulance-chasing for a cultured woman, but I didn't care. I'd had and been had by my own criminal and was uninterested in covering the passionate crimes of other sociopaths.

My mother, guessing at my many underlying truths, enrolled me for four years after Bobby's death, in intensive analysis with Dr. Cohen. To say that it saved my life is an understatement. I suspect she may have spent my inheritance there, but it was worth every penny.

Now we're at Gull Cottage, enough work from the Inquirer and Globe and others to keep a roof over our heads. One of my editors passed my name along yesterday to a Boston corporation needing someone to write feature stories for its employee magazine. That would bring in some much-needed revenue. It don't know what we'd do if we had to leave Gull Cottage and head to Philly for lack of funds, nor do I think the Captain would let us.

It was love at first sight, this house standing forlornly rooted to a windswept cliff. All I desired was privacy and a very inaccessible-to-family place to start over. Schooner Bay qualified on both accounts, and this lovely home erased any doubts about my self-imposed exile until, of course, my life changed with the flicker of a match and the whoosh of a lighting candle. Daniel now says he admired my spunk that first fateful night when he commanded me to light the blasted thing.

The John Donne poem so eloquently states how I felt in that instant, as the Captain's Roman nose emerged from the gloom and we began just the first of many tete a tetes. Indeed it was a good morrow to my waking soul. Infatuated was I. Afraid, also was I, jolted by the shock of the instant physical attraction I felt. "Did I, madam, did I?" he crooned when I charged him with aborting our hasty departure and returning us to Gull Cottage that first night. When the steering wheel veered to the left, turning us around, was I at war with my own hidden desires or struck with a sudden fascination for the first real man I'd ever encountered?

And now?

I can say that we watch one another, not out of fear –

For love, all love of other sights controls,

And makes one little room, an everywhere.

And that's what this cabin, our bedroom, has become. Our shared murmurings in the night, before the ever-welcome fire; the Captain's fascinating stories of lives and voyages long past; the daily grind of stringing words together under ferocious deadlines; the Captain's late-night musings when he thinks I'm sleeping, indeed have made this one little room an everywhere. By my troth, I am bonded to the man, to the house, and to everything atop this stormy cliff. And if I am not careful, love, all love, will make one ghost the only companion I'll ever need.


	8. Chapter 8

I knew I'd never lack for privacy at Gull Cottage, but coffee in Schooner Bay was another matter

Sept. 5, 1968

This morning at 5 a.m., I finally worked up the energy to dress in my dance tights, grab a mat and head to the beach. I've been meaning to fall back into my exercise routine, but I've been so busy settling us in at Gull Cottage and worrying about writing assignments that a workout's the least of my worries. Unlike most women, I have trouble maintaining my weight. Unlike most women, I intend to maintain my pre-baby figure and that means not disintegrating into flab. But back to today. Without a single cup of coffee to fortify me, I left before the Captain's morning ritual of shared companionship and caffeine. Perhaps unkind, I know. We both look forward to these pre-dawn tete a tetes.

But I just wasn't in the mood, especially after our argument last night about my perceived injudicious use of electricity in the house or, should I write, HIS formerly candle-lit house. He means well, trying to help me pinch pennies, but we seem incapable of talking calmly about anything these days. John Donne notwithstanding. One moment I write of true love, the next of down-and-dirty squabbling.

For my morning exercise meditation, I deliberately picked a stretch of dry sand between the boulders which formed a mini-cove, as in out-of-view of the telescope and the Captain's prying eye.

I began my Yoga full-body stretching exercise, "Salute to the Sun" quite literally as the weak sun pushed tentatively at the horizon. Maine winter is but a month or so away and, at 45 degrees, I wished I had remembered a sweatshirt. Saluting the Fall sun takes courage! Yoga does not raise the heartbeat but I commenced, nonetheless. There I was, contemplating the dunes upside down, with my head between my legs when the Captain materialized with a cup of coffee. Just like that. It took him a moment to process what he saw; I'll never know if the sight of my upended derriere so unexpectedly on display at such an ungodly hour aroused or horrified him. Both?

No matter, for the result was the same. After taking what seemed like forever to come to his senses, he began sputtering ridiculously. I couldn't hear him over the waves, now crashing perilously closer to my island of sand, but I perversely knew how to goad him on. I continued stretching, now from the push-up position, with my legs on the sand behind me -- offering an equally unladylike (his way of thinking) view of my posterior. I should have been mortified, or at least modestly embarrassed. Instead, and perhaps because I really had yet to awaken, I found the whole situation so ludicrous that I finally collapsed onto the sand and lay on my stomach giggling, head in hands. I knew I was in for platitudes about late 19th-century modes of conduct, but I simply couldn't help myself. How on earth does he think I maintain my figure anyway?

A few choice comments rose, unbidden to my lips, but I couldn't stop laughing long enough to fling them at him. It dawned (no pun intended) on me that laughter was my own way of dealing with a situation so tacitly…so implicitly intimate I wished in a flash we were back in our cabin where I could impetuously wrap myself in a robe and settle at my desk for more long-winded bickering. I remember thinking "he's probably already spied on me, and seen much more of me anyway" as I certainly would of him were I, too, proffered an immortal cloak of invisibility. Jonathan, in his total admiration for All Things Captain, has assured me ghosts are lucky and have no need of changing clothes. Why I thought of this, when a million other emotions flooded my mind, vying for attention, I'll never know. Maybe I needed time to process what had just happened, too.

I rolled over, serious at last, hoping the Captain had returned from whence he came, obviating any need for explanation or indignation. But/and there he was. Inexplicably sitting beside me, a look of incredible tenderness and patience and desire on his face. I flushed, and not with embarrassment. Unbidden, my eyes widened then closed as he lowered his face to mine, of necessity encircling me in his arms. My hand automatically rose to the curls on the back of his head, and his lips touched mine so tenuously I barely felt him at first. Instinctively, I wrapped my other arm around his neck and pulled us both down, onto the mat.

"If I kiss you again, it will change everything between us," he whispered into my ear.

"If you don't, it will ruin everything between us," I murmured into his.

And here I stop, wiping tears from this page, glancing askance at the empty room around me. At midnight, there is not a sound in the house save that of the wind shrieking once again against the cottage walls, announcing this time the first serious cold front of the season. The Captain is nowhere to be found and the silence is becoming icy.

"My dear lady," he replied an eternity ago on the beach. "My beautiful love."

Journal, you can guess the rest. With this, he simply vanished and left his beautiful love shivering with shame and indignation on the beach. It's still cold, and the word seeping comes to mind. I can't build a roaring blaze like he does, in the cabin, our cabin. No matter, I write somewhat melodramatically but in a heartfelt manner. My heart is safely back in the box I built with my mind 10 years ago, battened down in eternal defense against the rejection which I perversely feel I somehow deserve.

There will be room for no more hypotheticals in this relationship. Not anymore, I hope. He has to return at some point. For Jonathan and Candy. I wish I truly thought him a coward, but he in reality is so very much more. Vanishing, to his way of thinking, was probably the brave and only thing to do. Was he as scared as I by the strength of emotions and a passion that neither one of us has ever felt? Afraid of rejection, too? If there's anything I despise, it's a cowardly ghost.

I hate and love him in the same breath. Who am I kidding?


	9. Chapter 9

Sept. 6, 1968

I awakened at 2 a.m. to – what else? – Maine's official state cold, blustery weather. Indian Summer was on temporary respite. The house was so cold it was obvious the power had been off for quite some time. Curled deeply into the down comforter Martha had wisely purchased in Portland three days ago, I segued into a half-awake self-debate about whether to check on Jonathan and Candy.

"Madam, I have stoked the fires in everyone's cabin, all is well. I placed your housekeeper's new comforters over Jonathan and Candy. Sleep, my dear lady." My lips parted and I sat up, eyes widened, heart in throat. Was I dreaming?

These words tumbled across my consciousness like waves spilling across the rocky promontories of the beach below.

I hadn't heard a peep from him since that morning on the beach. Nothing. I'd alternated between feeling enraged, infuriated, rejected, embarrassed and tremendously let down. Was the whole thing my fault? Hardly. Who would have thought he'd bring coffee to the beach while I was in the midst of the only provocative part of my Yoga exercise. Half the time he won't even walk the beach with me, fascinated instead by the after-school hijinks of Jonathan and Candy, consumed with the heady responsibility and fun youth had laid for the first time upon his doorstep.

Removed from the strictures and barriers we'd self-consciously erected in the house to safely preserve what we knew we shared but dared not pursue, the beach was at once beautiful and intimate. No prying eyes, no children and no acerbic Martha constantly wondering why I suddenly seemed to be off the deep-end, talking to myself.

On the beach, anything was possible.

Was this why he'd suddenly vanished, afraid of what had suddenly welled up between us, unbidden yet not entirely unexpected? Now here he was, in the cabin, where the most intimate behavior we'd indulged in to date was romantic poetry reading.

He was here, to make amends and insulting apologies? How could we possibly talk around this one? Or, was he finally committing himself to a woman he'd barely known three months?

He had returned. To us. To me. To Jonathan and Candy, who'd angrily eyed me suspiciously at the dinner table last night? With the intuitive logic of small children, they knew mommy and the Captain were arguing and I knew it was Jonathan's deepest fear that he might lose the closeness this shy boy now shared with his all-too-masculine, blustery Captain Gregg.

My anger dissipated as quickly as the Captain had dematerialized two days ago on the beach. I futilely tried to muster a little petulance and attitude to prove to myself once and for all eternity I did not need the Captain.

Eternity pushed back. I could no further resist him than the tide could avoid the shore. Speechless and dumbfounded but with growing heat coursing through my body, I simply sat in what was really our bed, staring at his back. In what would be our nuptial bed were he mortal. One thousand resolutions to this situation flooded my mind, but all I could do was wordlessly watch him rearrange the logs I'd forlornly thrown on the hearth several hours earlier in another of my pathetic attempts to build a decent fire.

Daniel could easily have lit a blaze with a sweep of his arm or a glaze askance but somehow he knew I found this ritual reassuring and more than slightly titillating as he crouched closely by the hearth, broad back and shoulders on tantalizing display. Hardly fair, but the hair rose on the back of my arms and necks as I realized it was now or never. I held my breath. This was no time for petty superficialities.

"With me," he added softly, still facing the hearth.

"What?" I asked, distracted by his hardly mere physical presence.

"Go back to sleep, with me. Take me to bed, if you will still have me."

It was hopeless. There was nothing I would not do for this man. Aroused, I arose from my cushioned warmth and approached him quietly. A floorboard creaked and he turned slightly, in profile. For a moment, with his head hung so low, I saw the lonesome, orphaned little boy he must have been, the purposefully arrogant and self-protective sea captain he'd become, and the tormented spirit drifting without seeming purpose in an afterlife haunted by 100 year of loneliness. Could lying with him turn this very site of his death into a new beginning for us both? Tonight, there would be no false ebullience or sense of bravado. Just a beautiful, beautiful man tenuously offering the one thing each of us had yearned for but never experienced.

Daniel moved to fully face me, flames behind him. I felt, before I saw, his hands encircle my face before his lips briefly grazed mine. Then his hands were on my shoulders and he pulled me toward him into an uncompromising embrace. Much to my amazement, I felt surrounded not only by a physical presence that bore no difference from that of a human man, but by the strongest sense of love, peace and transcendent tenderness I have ever known. I wondered if this were part of his superhuman abilities but sensed no answer. I know Daniel has some ability to create dreams and manipulate human perception, but I doubted he would intrude into such a truly intimate arena, uninvited. This, I was certain, was unintentional.

I realized with shock he probably could no more control some emotionally based spectral abilities than I could my tears.

Then I lost all ability to think.

"Yes," I stammered. "If you will take me for forever."

He answered with his mouth, picked me up and carried me the few steps separating us from the bed. Suddenly he was naked, clothes vanished, his hands gently unbuttoning my unflattering flannel pajama top. My pants followed, as the Captain tugged them hurriedly down.

He laid himself quietly across my body, desire lapping gently across us both. Soft yet hard, he throbbed against my thighs. Suddenly, I wanted him inside me, abating months of unrequited desire. Kissing, hugging and foreplay could come later. Once again, my mind flooded with a sensibility not my own, an awareness in equal measure to my own desperate need to feel a union neither of us thought we'd ever be bold enough to explore.

Daniel entered me and I gasped. He was gentle, slow, and patient. It was a form of eroticism I'd never experienced. I don't wish to describe the indescribable here. Suffice it to say our first encounter was over before it had barely begun but the second, just 15 minutes later, lasted several hours.

"I love you," he whispered countless times into my ear as he moved above me. "Ghost-lover."


	10. Chapter 10

Sept. 7, 1968

I arose today before the Captain. He was so exhausted it was easy to slip his arm from under my shoulder, his hand still cupping my breast. Has it been a century or so since he really slept with a woman? I sighed in remembered passion. He had certainly earned his slumber. I slid stealthily from the little piece of heaven where we slept, our bodies melded together as though we'd been married a lifetime (or beyond, depending upon your perspective…). So much for the movies. Ghosts obviously sleep with the same oblivion as the rest of us, and I can heartily attest they are NOT cold.

But reality was. From ecstasy to lunch pails and school buses. I crept out of our room reluctantly, knowing if I stayed much longer, I'd fall asleep again and lose any chance of beating Martha to our singular bathroom. He may be a spirit, but the Captain left me smelling exactly like a woman who'd spent the good part of a night satisfying a demanding lover. I smiled at the memory then stopped with a start, peering at my face in the bathroom mirror. Surely he couldn't. Not after 100 years in the afterlife. The warm stickiness had to be as ectoplasmic as the rest of him. I wondered what my obstetrician in Philadelphia might think if I showed up in his office, requesting that new pill to prevent pregnancy.

The power was still out so there was no water – I did the best I could with a sponge bath. Thankfully, Jonathan had forgotten to pull the plug after his own bath the night before. I made do with his frigid leftovers, shivering as I soaped myself down with a washcloth then rinsing myself with his Tony the Tiger shampoo cup. I threw a clean robe over my shaking form and just in time, too.

Tap tap. "Mrs. Muir, dear, are you all right?" I opened the door and there she was, bright-eyed, completely dressed and more alert than any human had a right to be at 5:30 a.m. "Aren't you up, say, about an hour and a half too early?"

"Good morning, Martha. Oh, I don't even know what time it is," I sputtered, thanking the incredible luck of having the time for a cold bath that left me perky enough to deal with Martha's incredulity. "I had this dream about a story I'm writing and I decided just to get up and finish it while I could still remember the dream. Is the coffee on?"

"I put it on the stove about 20 minutes ago so you should be good-to-go," she harrumphed suspiciously, already headed back for the stairs. Martha and I had history. "I didn't sleep too well myself last night what with the weather and all the banging noise from the wind," she said. It occurred to me that my bedroom is right above hers. I flushed as I followed her down the stairs.

Martha's worked for our family for over 20 years, and she can read my face like a book. I grew up with one or two servants always in the house and, to be honest, considered Martha more than just a "maid." Mother went through about two or three women until she found the stalwart Martha, to whom she happily absconded all responsibility for running the house and protecting my virtue. In fact, the sagacious Martha caught me sneaking out on numerous occasions, shinnying down the tree outside my bedroom window in classic rich-girl style. I was fairly wild even if I looked like an ice princess. Somehow Martha knew my mother wasn't the one to tame me. Martha's punishments were much more subtle, such as not ironing a dress I needed for a party or making Hungarian goulash instead of hamburgers for an overnight sleepover. "You have violated my trust," she would state simply. "When you have regained it, your privileges will be restored."

Martha always managed to rein me with understated disapproval that always left me feeling as if I'd disappointed her.

Truth be told, I didn't like disappointing her. But this morning? What could Martha, who knows nothing of the Captain, possibly think I was up to? I tried to fake my usual effusive goofiness (of the variety I've taken to covering myself when caught talking to the invisible-to-her Captain) but Martha ignored me. She still rules. And actually, although I haven't told Daniel, my mother pays her salary. Guilt money, I suppose, but Martha doesn't see it that way. She thinks my parents owe me. Big time.

I knew Ed Peavey had warned her Gull Cottage would get to me. Considering most of the locals thought of Captain Gregg and Gull Cottage as one inextricably linked entity, perhaps she was a little unconvinced by my story. Just incredible bad luck. The most taciturn person in Schooner Bay probably already has spilled the beans to my housekeeper.

Back to the kitchen: I think she saw me wince a little when I reached in the cabinet for a mug. After what, nine years? I was sore. Delightfully so. Fortunately, she didn't ask. Probably assumed I'd pulled a muscle with that new-fangled Yoga routine (her words) of mine.

All I wanted to do was grab another cup of coffee and fly back up the stairs to the Captain. Instead, I sat with Martha, sipping coffee and discussing sundry household items. I finally feel like a real woman, and what? Thirty-six years old and still trying to outwit the mother figure!

And suddenly, there he was. Pouring himself a big cup of coffee, a bottle of Bailey's in the other hand. With a wicked smile, he proffered the bottle to me, behind Martha's back. I flushed and a twitch moved involuntarily across my lips.

Martha ignored it and began making pancake batter.

My lover, the sea captain, waited until her back was turned before pouring Bailey's liberally into my half-filled cup. "To us, Madam," he whispered, immaculately groomed and devastatingly handsome as always. Other than that, he was ghost-as-usual, tipping extra chocolate chips into Martha's cookie batter and impatiently strutting around the kitchen. Once she was safely out of earshot, I burst into laughter, wiping tears out of my eyes as the Captain, who appeared quite pleased with himself, rose to his fullest height and topped my cup off with the creamy liqueur of his country-of-origin.

"To us, Madam, " he crooned intimately, looking shipshape and Bristol whatever, as Jonathan would say. It appeared ghosts are different from us in at least one matter: Showers were optional. I clinked my coffee cup against his. "To us," I cooed softly, completely smitten. And he leant forward and kissed me, barely grazing my lips.


	11. Chapter 12

Would Daniel leave me if he knew the truth of my past? He is so proud of me, a "true lady" except in bed, of course.

I am so very glad he is not able to sense my state-of-mind, as I can his.

Despite my very heady love affair with the Captain, a sense of dread and claustrophobia close upon me once again on my very soul.

I am trapped. I am angry. I want to lash out at someone. We are closing in on the anniversary of Bobby's death. In a few days, Ralph and Marjorie will ring up, suggesting I drive the children to Philadelphia where the two old people can regale Jonathan and Candy with memories of their father. Of course, they will drive my children to his gravesite, take them out for dinner, and then spend Sunday morning with them in church. After that, they'll bring my babies back to my mother's house where we will exchange pleasantries and I will flee back to Maine, where there is no reason for pretense and I once again am only the oddly eccentric Widow Muir who talks to herself and is purportedly rumored to love a very special ghost.

I thought, at Gull Cottage, the spectre of my past could at last rest in peace.


	12. Chapter 11

Oct. 1

My job is to describe. As a writer, I string words like an invisible tapestry across my readers' consciousness so in the gentle flutter of words they share viscerally in the experiences I am paid to describe.

Adjectives and adverbs, qualifiers and active yet emotive third-person narrative -- they are insufficient for Captain Daniel Gregg.

It's as if I have fallen for an ineffable essence that cannot be distilled or contained by words and sometimes even my thoughts. By my emotions, yes. For the first time in my life, I cannot intellectualize this away. I FEEL Daniel at every level. Even if we'd never slept together, ours would be the most intimate relationship I've ever known. True intimacy, more poignant and intense than even sexual intercourse. Dare I, an unenthusiastic Episcopalian, use the word spiritual?

I suppose that, during the day, one could argue there are plenty of words/ways to describe the seeming nitpicking that covers our deeper feelings with petty squabbling and turf-protecting bickering. Yet even this incessant give-and-take resolves in moist-eyed, dewy looks between the two of us. Even if he is the most incorrigible, hidebound, arrogant and totally magnificent man I have ever laid eyes on.

Despite nightly reassurance of his love and devotion, I am still petrified Daniel might leave -- the intimacy of our new relationship did not spare me his wrath over the Monkey Puzzle tree, for example. He disappeared for two days and it was if the world were pulled out from under my feet. I panicked. When I rightly capitulated, Daniel returned. We've argued about furniture, fought over my right to entertain the PTA, endured a medium and even sent the skanky family psychiatrist packing. Neither of us is very good at giving ground but somehow we always find a common ground that feels as if it was just waiting all along for us to discover.

Before, I tried to make my peace with what could not be, imagining but never hoping.

Now he's mine, and I have spent the last week in a romantic haze, flushing when he appears in a room, smiling to myself and in general so enormously cheerful that Jonathan and Candy are wondering what's up. Martha just warily ignores me but, then, I think she's a little in love herself with the horse-faced Ed Peavey.

I haven't broached this with Daniel, but I think we now face some very earthly problems.

Foremost is how to explain ourselves to Jonathan and Candy. Love, romance and (probably) sex between the Captain and myself already have been trumpeted on the playground and inferred through prying questions from their friends' mothers. My two beautiful children are objects of curiosity in town, through no fault of their own. Mom's a widow, beautiful but snooty, living in a home haunted by a handsome peevish ghost who terrorizes everyone else. Or so I overheard Candy repeating scuttlebutt to Jonathan. The ghost-lover nonsense is still alive and well as Schooner Bay waits to discover why the thunder squalls have so suspiciously diminished.

But the kids? Even if they never catch us in bed together, Jonathan and Candy no doubt will infer some degree of intimacy between us, especially as they age. I know I should take this one day at a time, but as drunks like Bobby Muir used to say, our new physical relationship could become the proverbial elephant in the room. I don't want this for my children; I want to be as open and as honest as is age-appropriate. I want them to feel they can always approach me with problems. You can't do this when you are living a lie, and that is something I know all about.

Complicating all this is Jonathan's total love and affection for Daniel and, Daniel's annoying yet charming and reassuring sense of old-world honor and propriety. l don't even need to ask what he thinks about telling Jonathan anything less than "I am married to your mother." But, we never can be. Not in the legal sense. Certainly morally, emotionally and spiritually. We both made that clear to each other our first night. How can that be explained to children?

Fortunately, the kids are still in the "do you think he goes to the bathroom" fart stage of eschatological playground humor.

Captain Daniel Gregg, spirit, can only physically manifest himself to me for reasons, he guesses, that have to do with our extraordinary connectedness. I cannot wait to get my copy of that Amado novel Elizabeth translated, "Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands." There is just so much not even the Captain understands about the world of spirits, aside from the fact it is generally acknowledged that some spirits cannot "cross over" until they resolve earth-bound dilemmas of some sort.

Never one to underestimate himself, Daniel boasts he hung around to save me from self-enforced chastity. I still haven't told him about Bobby.

But as for Jonathan and Candy...how do you explain in one breath their father is dead and so is the Captain but Daddy's gone and the Captain's here? These children already have been traumatized by the loss of one "parent," such as he was. I know that would never happen again. Daniel is as committed to the kids as he is to me.

Methinks we will simply explain, sometime soon, there is something special that exists between the Captain and myself -- and them. We are a family, with all that entails but can never be shared outside of Gull Cottage. Very soon, in the near future, we must explain things to Martha. The growing stress of lying to our housekeeper s wearing me out. It's the only real stain on my current bliss. When Martha's upset, she calls me Carolyn and gives me raised-eyebrow looks that make Jonathan giggle. And she mumbles. I caught her in front of Daniel's portrait the other day, staring.

"Carolyn," she muttered. "Maybe all that therapy finally paid off But him?" Martha will never understand psychotherapy, the province of the rich. But she knows it has made a huge if subtle difference in me. She hates my father and she despised Bobby Muir and I know she probably goaded my mother into paying Dr. Cohen all that money.

Daniel is watching me as I write, puffing on one of his infernal cigars. All in all, he looks very pleased with himself. I think I will have to put this down and retire to his lap, from where I will nestle my head upon his shoulder, my arms entwining themselves around his neck. There I will listen to the wind, the tide, and the steady beating of his immortal heart. And I will kiss him gently as he stands and carries me to bed for our voyage into the rest of my life.


	13. Chapter 13

Oct. 5, 1968

Captain's Log:

Mrs. Muir is gone, fled from the house with nary a word or explanation. Candy was at a friend's and Jonathan and I were following an old Schooner Bay map to the site of the town's first shipyard when it happened. She pointed her trusty automobile south and abandoned us, bearing south southwest away from the evening tide

Avast, Madam! I sensed your haste and responded with all my essence. But you heard me not. I would never abandon Jonathan under any circumstances and any chance to reach you quickly faded as the miles between us grew. Now I stand the midnight watch here, in our cabin, waters becalmed in your absence. There is no sailing out of these doldrums. The waves roar weakly on the beach below, chastened by your absence.

You have my word of honor as a formal naval officer that I will not betray your trust and read the pages preceding this. But this is a log, a diary of daily events and I cannot tolerate any lapses in what is in essence a history of our lives here. It requires daily discipline and unstinting honesty to create a record of any voyage.

Blast it! I know, my dear, you would have told me if you could why, with such uncharacteristic haste, you flew from Gull Cottage. The children were not dispirited when Martha duly informed them, over a dinner of pancakes and applesauce, that you will spend the week attending a writers' conference in Philadelphia.

To the contrary, "Now we have Captain Gregg all to ourselves," Jonathan chortled with glee, spitting syrup-laden pieces of pancake across the table at Candy, who grinned as she shot a spoonful of applesauce back at his face.

"I mean at night," he whispered as Martha stepped back into the kitchen. "He won't have to waste his time telling her all the good stories!"

"Jonathan, the only story you'll be hearing is the one about the little boy who --"

Martha's platitude froze on her lips as the ever-intrusive telephone jangled into life in the hallway.

"Mommy!" bellowed Jonathan into the receiver as he won the mad stampede into the foyer. "Candy just threw applesauce at me."

"Oh. Sorry Grandma. Martha, it's Grandma Williams. She wants to talk to you. Not you, Candy! No Grandma, I didn't start it."

As Martha reached for the blasted telephone, Candy and my lad Jonathan lost all interest in the conversation and used the opportunity to slip away from the kitchen and into the sitting room for an evening cartoon show they knew their mother would never approve. Martha would let them watch it, too, they knew. There was no such thing as a short conversation with Grandma Williams. Martha seemed so relieved to have them out of earshot and entertained that she asked Jonathan to close the parlor doors.

This left me, the only eavesdropper and commander of the watch. Madam, I have no scruples against snooping in matters regarding your welfare. But listening to two cackling women such as your Mother and Martha is a daunting task even for such a seasoned specter as myself.

"They what?" "And so who" "Does she know" "Hmmm" "Did the police" – this wasn't conversation, it was a badminton game. The two women lobbed comments back and forth for so long I entertained for but a moment the idea of invisibly snatching the phone away from your housekeeper. Blasted Martha held the blasted receiver so close to her ear I could hear nothing substantive. But, I duly note, Martha sank wearily into the chair I silently moved in her direction, too engrossed in your mother's words to notice my silent assistance.

"What will Carolyn do?" Finally, an almost complete sentence then, "I see. I see."

And I could see the tears now flowing freely down Martha's substantive cheeks. "Mizz Williams, I'm sorry. I thought since we'd passed the anniversary date the Muirs might be content to let matters rest. No, she didn't say anything here. She's been acting a little strange over the last several months but I, uh, attributed it to aah, a rather spiritual matter of sorts."

"Yes, yes ma'am I will." Martha listened a few seconds longer, holding the telephone tightly in her grip. "But you've had no word from her?"

Several seconds later, Martha hung up the telephone and wiped her tears with her apron. I followed her into the kitchen, silently hoping she'd resume her usual habit of mumbling comments under her breath so I could better understand why you have left me, us. The two of us.

Instead, I was astounded by what happened next.

The stalwart Martha stopped suddenly, right by the stove as she reached for the coffee pot.

"All right, Captain Gregg. I know you're there. And if you really love Mrs. Muir as much as she thinks you do, it's high time you stepped away from that telescope of yours and had a little chat with me."

Seconds later, she batted nary an eyelash as I generously poured Bailey's into her cup then materialized at the table with a Cognac for myself.

"Just how far do your powers extend?" she asked.

More tomorrow, my dear. I sense movement in the corridor below and It must be the children. I know my duty and must attend to it. Rest most assuredly, my darling, wherever you are, that I told her my powers are very, shall we say, formidable.


	14. Chapter 14

Oct. 6, 1968

Captain's Log

Were it so that today's entry could be written from my small captain's cabin on a dangerously lisping clipper, penned by the light of a wildly swinging lantern, my left hand tightly grasping a rope to right myself in high seas, quill in hand – over one hundred years ago. Those seemingly rote chronicles of my voyages captured only our longitude/latitude, the frequent lassitude of our journey, the various food shortages engendered by trips to the other side of a great expanse, and the sundry observations of my first mate.

But that ship, as today's cynics are so fond of noting, has sailed. Over 100 years ago. Today, I no longer am commander of anything, let alone my heart. I may walk the foredeck of our cabin, legs planted firmly apart in the manner befitting a captain of my stature, superior in every manner, but this is a vain pretence.

Carolyn Muir is new mistress in my life, a warm harbor in the gloom of my afterlife. Of no import now the formidably cold Atlantic Ocean with its storm-tossed gray waters. No enticing challenge now in plowing my way through dangerous waters off remote Patagonian coast or the seamann-killing, ship-sinking Horn of Africa. Safe passages such as these dwindle when I wrap my arms solidly around you as you stand at the Captain's wheel on the living paradise that is our private balcony.

Now I understand what it is to share a life – even if it is an afterlife – with a lover, friend and soulmate. To entertain children I love almost as much as their elegant mother. To dance on the front lawn, cotillion in mind, your small, lithe body pressed against mine in mortal time, eternity on the horizon.

Methinks I pontificate, as would you, sitting by the fire, smiling your bewitching, enchanting smile, would gently admonish me. Madam, you take the wind out of my very sails.

But I digress. Here I stop to stroke my beard in an effort to accurately depict the events of last night, when I stopped to invisibly assist Martha in the difficult task of situating your rowdy rapscallions in their beds. Stormy sailing, that. Jonathan, of course, wished to hear of my debarkation into a dangerous African port with menacing colonial therefore by definition, arrogant French soldiers. I was in no mood to humor the lad, given your most tantalizing but one-way conversation with your busybody housekeeper. The lost opportunity to imbue your son with greater masculinity would have to wait.

I will give Martha this much – instead of fainting, screaming or batting so much as an eyelash at my materialization, she sipped her coffee thoughtfully, seemingly pleased by the addition of milky Irish liqueur. For the first and only time in my life, I was dumbstruck.

"Where has Mrs. Muir been hiding the Bailey's?" she snorted characteristically after a moment. We stared – or might I suggest? – glared at each other for what seemed an eternity. Given I am somewhat of an expert in that dimension, it galls me to admit the plebian Martha captured my tongue for so long. My 'temper-squalls' as you laughingly call them, seemed unequal to the occasion. Martha is her own-force-of-nature and I knew intuitively this was not the time for earthbound manifestations of my spectral powers. Instead, I sputtered.

At last, I managed to sputter: "Where she hides the Bailey's is no concern of yours neither is the nature of my relationship with the lady of the house. Mrs. Muir, I assure you, is first and foremost a lady."

Martha stared briefly at the steam rising from her coffee. "And a lonely widow last? Captain Gregg, you arrogant seadog" she snapped, "Stuff it. Save your weak explanations for Jonathan and Candy. Stories indeed."

"Mrs. Muir needs your help," she leaned back into her chair – a positive sign, I intuited – then continued intently in her no-nonsense fashion.

"We all need your help. You're right, what goes on between the two of you is none of my business. I know, however, you've got a very invested interest in her prompt return to Gull Cottage. Her return ever to Gull Cottage. Either you're in or you're out. I'm asking one more time. What is the extent of your spectral powers? I'm afraid you are the only (pause here for a great harrumph) person who can return Mrs. Muir to our safekeeping."

This intrigued me greatly. At the same time, my heart sank. My dear, you must be in grave trouble. The thought that your safe return lay in my hands engendered a sense of self-control. Bumbling idiots such as Claymore and your Philadelphia family and in-laws would not be tolerated.

Indoctrinated Baptist that Martha is, I was mildly surprised her first question wasn't about the Lord's will or the afterlife. She is a true believer of the kind I now know our creator intended us all to be. When I was alive, my feelings about churches and organized religion were well known in Schooner Bay. I chafed against the iron thumb of Calvinistic drivel that ruled the lives of our distinguished yet sanctimonious and hypocritical townsfolk. My faith in God was limited by the cruelty of a deity who condemned so many seamen to watery depths. Conversely, I admit to feelings od enormous gratitude each time this same creator endowed us with strong easterly winds. I sensed his presence in the depths of glorious sunsets over his watery realm

And now, I staunchly hoped and fervently prayed to the merciful God of Martha's church. To the Creator of all churches, synagogues, mosques and temples.

God helps those who help themselves, and I am certain he would not limit my powers in a horrible situation such as this.

"Martha, my spectral powers are quite extensive and completely at your service," I replied with utter confidence. I can move objects, interfere with humans in annoying fashions, manipulate the weather, invisibly snoop and imitate voices of others. When appropriate, I can even interfere in mortal matters. If you have any doubts, ask Claymore."

Martha pulled a cigarette from her apron. She lit up and exhaled thoughtfully in my direction.

"Sounds like you are just the ticket. How much did your spectral eavesdropping hear in my conversation with Miz Williams?"

"Martha, to the point" I demanded. Tears welled unbidden to my eyes. I was a mere lad the last time I cried, and that at my beloved mother's graveside. Regrettably, I lost control this time. My nose rested between my thumb and forefinger, my head momentarily bowed by emotion.

When I looked up to squarely face Martha, I registered belief and trust in her eyes.

"Captain," she said softly and without wry sarcasm. "I believe you are capable of handling the truth. That your belief in Mrs. Muir is planted more firmly than in whatever goes on between the two of you each night."

She dropped her cigarette into what remained of her coffee, leaned forward and clasped her hands.

"Carolyn killed Bobby. She shot her husband. Miserable drunk and wife-beater. She was just defending herself. Bobby was well known to the Philadelphia police. God knows they showed up plenty of times on Carolyn's doorstep. So they fooled with the evidence to make it look like he shot himself in a drunken rage. The Muirs strongly suspected Carolyn. And now they have the ear of a friendly police chief. They're well-connected, you know. They want revenge, especially since they'd get their hands on Jonathan and Candy if Mrs. Muir ever got convicted."

Please don't think me perverse, madam. I was relieved. Very relieved.


	15. Chapter 15

Oct. 6, 1968

It is a complicated matter, why a woman stays with a man who beats her. My few friends who knew thought I stayed with 'Beatme Bob," as they called him, for fear of losing my kids, my social status, income, etc. Of course there were many more who knew but simply couldn't acknowledge one of Philadelphia's favorite sons, the charming, witty, gregarious and engaging Bobby Muir, would ever, ever think of touching a hair on my lovely blond head.

Bobby was the "master of the castle," as I later learned in therapy. He wanted power and control in our relationship. The handsome one had it in spades and flung it at me in handfuls of threats, intimidating remarks, emotional abuse, denials…and I took it. I gradually began to see the pattern. First he'd hit me, slap me around a little (never on the face), push me to the floor while screaming I deserved everything I got -- then apologize, buying me jewelry, flowers, and inviting several of our friends for dinners on-the-town. Gradually, like all honeymoons, the fairytale Bobby that I'd married would morph back into Beatme Bob. I tried desperately to placate him but these efforts were mostly futile. Tensions built and built until finally he would dominate me once again in many, many humiliating ways.

More times than not, somebody would call the police. I'm pretty sure it was our next-door neighbor, an elderly woman whose bedroom window looked directly into ours. When they arrived, the officers were formal but courteous. One of them, an Italian named Colletti, even hauled Bobby down to the station. Another officer brought a social worker, who took me firmly by the arm and into the parlor, closing the door behind her. She asked me to remove my robe, and I began to weep. I couldn't believe my life had been reduced to this. She tallied the bruises on my arms (Bobby liked to shake me), torso and legs (always above the knee). I was urged to visit a private clinic, to establish a medical paper trail with a series of X-rays designed both to document the crime and ensure I didn't have any fractures.

Patiently, the social worker explained she had no doubt Bobby was loving and caring – when he wasn't beating me. She also warned me of the long-term impact of his behavior on the children, about the day, God forbid, little Jonathan or Candy would witness this violent betrayal of their mother. Insecurity, loyalty, fear, denial, remembrance of days past, learned helplessness from parents (my specialty, I learned later in therapy), guilt, low self-esteem, simple exhaustion…all reasons many women stayed with their own Beatme Bobbies… so she said. I think her last name was Burden. Later, when I followed her advice after a particularly painful night with Bobby, the doctors indeed found three badly healed fractures on my right forearm. Thank God I am left-handed.

I think the social worker was right, that each of these factors explain a good deal as to why I remained with this two-headed hydra monster. After Bobby's death, Dr. Cohen patiently explained, over many months in therapy, that as a little girl I was unable to control the capricious environment in my parents' household. My dad was no wife-beater, but he was cold, controlling and in general engendered a sense of helplessness in me, the eldest perfect child. I tried to protect my mother, my siblings, by trying to live up to his demands. I did everything I could but a sense of learned helplessness was the final result. And I took up residence in my head, inventing stories, writing narratives about princesses who led charmed lives far removed from my own. These fictional friends were my refuge, and I began writing interweaving if childish plotlines for their perfect lives.

Fast forward to my arrival at Gull Cottage. I would use the word fragile, but that sounds pathetic under current circumstances. I arrived tenuously confident I would be safe, isolated, and in control of my circumstances and my children. Cool and patrician. And there he was. I smile as I write. There he was. My interior life dissipated by his presence in every nook and corner of the house. For the first time ever, I lived in my heart, not my head, with a strong undertow of desire threatening to carry me out and away from the old Carolyn.

Curled up here, in front of a fire in my friend Patsy's cabin north of Caribou, I think of Daniel. Constantly. Not of my two beautiful children, or what will happen to them when the Muir's subpoena finally catches up with me. Of the Captain only. I meant to tell him, I really did. On one of those seemingly long-ago nights in front of the fire in our own cabin, sated by lovemaking, falling asleep entwined in the bed. I lay awake many, many evenings, watching the embers die, the words, the story ready to spill from my lips. But his embrace, his warmth, the incredible life and security he breathed into my battered family erased any admission on my part. I tried to rationalize my duplicity, arguing to myself the Captain was so good for the children it would be a terrible thing, telling him how really soiled I really am. Not a virtuous woman at all. A coward who should have told him long ago, long, long ago.

There is no doubt in my mind he would ask us to leave Gull Cottage. He so very strongly feels I am the embodiment of femininity, grace, and everything he ever hoped for in a companion. Not a murderess, with warm tears spilling down her cheeks each night as the love of her own life snores gently into the back of her neck. He would think it right and proper that the Muirs gain possession of their son's murderer. I can only hope he would stay in contact with Jonathan and Candy. Daniel is such an honorable man.

My worst fear is that he might try to remove all memory of his presence from our individual minds. I'm certain he can do that and frantic with fear. There are many things I can take, but life without memory of the only man I have ever loved is not one of them.

It is but a matter of time before I must leave this safe haven, to learn if charges will be filed against me should the Muirs actually pressure Philadelphia's police chief and district attorney into seating a grand jury.

For the first time I have something other than my children that's worth protecting. A blustery ghost I love so much it hurts, deep in my heart of hearts. A love that for the first time makes me matter to myself.


	16. Chapter 16

Oct

Oct. 8, 1968

It is so cold up here. I haven't been to town. I can't go to town. Maine is that small. Patsy keeps a maid on retainer. She sent her to the store in anticipation of my arrival and directed the woman's husband to stock plenty of wood for the stove. A new down-filled blue duvet, my favorite color, was spread invitingly across the bed, topped with a blanket I know her grandmother knitted. Thank goodness for Patsy. I never would have guessed she harbored any talent for homemaking but here I was, safe and secure in a snug little cabin in the middle of nowhere, a quilt rack at the foot of the pine bed.

Where else could I hide and whom else could I trust? Patsy hated Bobby from the start. Her family was from California, and like Patsy had little time for who's who in what is essentially a very blue-collar city. I met her at the Inquirer. She's a copy editor, the first woman to make the grade without being an old maid, an alcoholic or chain cigarette-smoker. I heard her once, yell one day at a very reporter so loudly it carried across 20 clacking typewriters and resonated through ringing phones: "Why is the lede down in the sixth paragraph of the story? Get over here and rewrite, stop getting in the way of the news! Why should I make you look good? And do it before you drink your damn lunch." She guffawed loudly Patsy's opinion on anything was never subtle. She edited copy from city desk, sports desk, police beat and city council. If it happened in Center City, she knew about it.

Speculation was her grandfather had left her a six-figure trust fund that inured her to consequences of abiding by anyone's rules save hers. Most of the hard-boiled reporters seemed to have forgotten she was a woman. Patsy was treated just like one of the guys. I was afraid of her at first, until she invited me for lunch at the little Italian restaurant two streets over. I was astonished where she ordered us each a glass of Chianti then lit a cigarette and blew the smoke deliberately in my face. "So is it true? Not that it matters. Except I can arrange for someone to beat the crap out of him." And she offered me a cigarette. My first in about eight years. "You know, Caro, for such a little blue-blood rich girl, you really are a good writer. Dover says you fool sources you look so sweet and demure people will tell you anything." Like that. The conversation about Beatme was over. We moved on to newspaper politics. At the end of the lunch, she slipped me her home phone number and stared fixedly at the long sleeves on my blouse. She got it, Patsy got it instantly. I shouldn't have been surprised, except most people who look at me see what they want to see, not what I really am.

Patsy wasn't at all non-plused when I rang her up, a week and a half ago, begging for access to her family's summer cabin. "Don't even tell me, Caro," she barked in her usual staccato tone. "I'm already getting an earful from the police beat reporters and the guys over at City Hall. Everything knows there's something going down in the Beatme Bob case. I can think of no nobler civic obligation than aiding and abetting his murderess."

In the context of dark newspaper humor, this was hilariously funny. Patsy paused and I could hear her take a drag on what was no doubt an unfiltered Pall Mall. There was silence, she was probably staring at a smoke ring. "Caro. Stay out of Philly. Let me see what I can find out. The dumb-ass who's covering this for the paper doesn't have a clue, I'll have to play fact-checker and call the DA's office. They owe me. I fix their quotes all the time. The motherfuckers over there haven't mastered subject-verb agreement. And do not tell your mother anything. Nothing! By the way there's a loaded gun on the top shelf of the closet. Feel free to blast the hell out of anyone who bothers you. That most especially includes reporters. By the way, our grizzled editor isn't playing this anywhere prominent. We're on your side, love child."

When I first arrived here, I slept for 13 hours. It was a tedious drive from Schooner Bay. I headed southwest, at first, worried the Captain might be able to sense my direction. When I reached Portland, I doubled back and headed up the Interstate to America's northeastern-most city. Patsy had strategically posted her maid at the last exit before Caribou. I spotted the red truck, saw the slight nod of the red-headed woman, and followed her out to the cabin. Not a word passed between us. The little house lay at the end of a long, rut-filled road that had to be impassable during the cold, dark, long winters. Or maybe not. I had a pretty good idea Patsy and her secret boyfriend headed here for the Christmas holidays.

Why am I writing all this? I don't know. It passes time. I'm tired, very tired. When I close my eyes I see Jonathan and Candy, walking along the seashore with the Captain. They can touch him, too. But that's where it ends, Daniel says. By choice, accident or design, he won't say. I really think he has no interest in passing as a member of the community, meeting other people or really rejoining the living. We are his life and he is becoming ours. Was becoming, I should say. I can't call. I am not ready to face anyone. Patsy phoned my mother to say she'd seen me at a seminar on writing in Wilmington. I'm sure my mother burned the telephone line to relay this news to Martha. Neither one of them was fooled, but Patsy didn't care. Would the Captain know it was me if I called? Is he spying on Martha, trying to glean any information about my whereabouts? He has to be worried.

I awakened early (for me) yesterday. The little radioactive hands on my watch dial said it was 7 a.m. I was groggy. The sun wasn't even up yet. I closed my eyes. For a brief moment I smelled warm, fragrant coffee and heard the click of a cup settling on the nightstand. I reached for the Captain, expecting the warm scratchy feel of his winter woolens, the reassuring interlocking of our fingers. The crisp cotton feel of the nightstand runner was all I found. I awakened as my knuckles knocked awkwardly against the wood.

The phone is ringing. Wait, Caro. She said she'd call and let it ring three times, then would call back so I'd know it was her. Three short rings, six long seconds then silence. That was our code. I jumped as the phone jangled back to life and swiped at the receiver. "Society girl," Patsy's voice boomed even over the miles. "You'd better be awake. The handsomest man I've ever met just strolled into the newsroom, asking for me. The guys about dropped their cigarettes in their coffee. He walked in that rolling gait you only see in sailors, but this guy has an air of authority I've never seen in any wharf rat. Mr. Nautical has dark blonde hair and a beard that's a little out-of-date. And these sexy stentorian tones that made me just wanna sleep with him. He looked me right in the eye, leaned over my desk (I was ready to kiss him) and, shall I say, ordered me to tell you to call him. Said you'd know by my description. He added, 'Tell her Martha knows about me.' I was so flummoxed I reached for the cigarette burning away in the ash tray, just to buy a little time and gather my wits, you know? When I looked up, he was already through the newsroom door. How can that be possible? You can't walk over there that fast. Everybody was staring at me. They couldn't overhear him or anything. It was weird. About a second later they seemed to forget completely about him. Told me to close my mouth, which was just hanging open. Caro? You there? Who the hell is he? Do you have a boyfriend I don't know about? Can we trust Mr. Sailor or should I be worried. Hello?"

I had to get off the line. I mumbled something about thanks and hung up on her. I flushed with the full heat of love and lust and terror. If the Captain visited Patsy, Martha must have put her up to it. My mother would never track me down. Martha would. Which means Martha sent the Captain to Patsy, which means Martha somehow knows about the Captain. I clasp the receiver tightly in my left hand, my right hovering on 0. Slowly, I dial the operator and make a collect call. To Gull Cottage. The phone rings just once, and the Captain answers.

I am crying so hard I can barely talk. There is a click. Somebody has disconnected the call. I look up. He's here, standing right beside me. The Captain. And he's crying, too.


	17. Chapter 17

Oct. 9

"somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond

any experience, your eyes have their silence:

in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,

or which i cannot touch because they are too near…"

(i do not know what it is about you that closes

and opens; only something in me understands

the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)

nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands" – ee cummings

The voice of his eyes. There were no words, there was nothing that mattered – at first anyway – that supplanted the sheer emotion of that instant, which stretched infinitely in the moment he materialized. We embraced tightly, unanswered questions irrelevant. Pretty significant considering I was about to be tried for the murder of my dead husband and had been caught living a lie with the long-intended inamorata fate had so grievously denied me. I was shamelessly on fire; nothing outside the Captain's arms fazed me as he stroked my hair, murmuring unintelligible reassurances into my ear. His lips brushed my neck and I could feel the wetness on his face. I was the first to pull back, separating myself from our lovely reality as another seeped unbidden into my consciousness like an unwelcome rain drumming insistently on my guilt.

Daniel could easily have overheard Martha on the phone with my mother. Was he here to express his horror at my lies about my marriage, my culpability in allowing him to believe his afterlife could be even more incredible than his mortal existence?

"How?" I gushed rather unromantically, a thousand questions on the tip of my tongue. "Martha." His eyes never left mine. "You could say she summonsed my spirit from the Wheelhouse and, thankfully without any extraordinarily droll humor, explained the situation entire situation. I must say she is quite a smoker" and I started guiltily, wondering if he would taste the stale nicotine on my tongue.

"Madam," he continued quietly. "Martha believes in and trusts me and I don't think she truly believes in ghosts, my magnificence not withstanding. Why couldn't you?"

My only response? I fell once again into his waiting arms. "Captain," I whispered into the safety and security of his scratchy pea jacket. Tears flowed freely down both our faces. "I killed my own husband. Did she tell you? I can barely live with it – how can you? Will you visit me in jail? Can you forgive me for lying to you? Please don't erase my memories of you…" I completely lost control. "If you don't want me anymore that's fine, just don't leave me now. Or the children."

His enfolded me even more tightly as his hands slid upwards, around my shaking shoulders.

"No, he whispered into my ear. "You are not going to prison. You are not even going to stand trial. And yes, I can 'live' with it, although I find your choice of words slightly inappropriate considering my current state. Tomorrow, Mrs. Muir. Tomorrow you can explain all on the drive back to Gull Cottage. Hush now."

He bent, and the man more alive to me than any person I have ever loved or kissed, brushed the top of my head with his lips before wiping the flood of tears from my cheeks with his thumbs.

Gently at first, he kissed my eyelids, my eyebrows, my lips. Suddenly, he pulled away. "Madam," he uttered with studied authority. "I, too, have something to confess." I nuzzled even more deeply into his chest, pulling him as close to me as I could. At that moment I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. I tensed in worried anticipation.

"Mrs. Muir, I am guilty of tampering with evidence. All of it, actually. In fact, I have erased all memory of the exact manner of your late husband's demise from the suspicious minds of those Philadelphia crooks. Even Patsy's. I suspect you surmised her unintentional complicity in my efforts here. I can't find you if you don't wish it, silly woman. Clever, how you drove south then backtracked to this godforsaken outpost of Maine culture. Oh, and yes, the Muirs and your parents. As far as anyone is now concerned, if they even bother to think of it at all, Bobby Muir was shot in Center City after refusing to give his wallet to a petty thief. He died an accidental death if ignoble death the children will come to understand."

And he paused, as they say, for effect. "The only memories you have to worry about now, are the ones we will make tonight."

I floated gently into the air as he lifted me, depositing my shaking form onto what passed for a bed in Patsy's pioneer mind.

The Captain was still crying. Gently, he positioned himself above me, and I could feel his eyelashes leaving butterfly kisses on my forehead.

"Captain?" I ventured tenuously. "Are you crying because I've, umm, diminished myself in your estimation.

"Hush Madam and stop speaking in elongated sentences like the captain of a clipper. I'm crying because I thought you'd left me, after all we'd been through, because you found me somewhat lacking by your modern standards. And, for the record, I've never cried in front of one of your species or felt myself to be lacking in any manner. I venture this as a sincere token of my undying devotion to you and your children."

"You magnificent, silly man," I choked out as he began to kiss me quietly and softly and wondrously. "The children couldn't be further from my mind right now."

I believe a romance writer would add here that our kisses slowly deepened and that well-worn cliché certainly applied here. In seconds I felt him grow, pulsing against me so insistently I reached for his belt, my hand moving in an inevitable downward spiral.

And suddenly he was naked. "Ah the spirit world, Captain." Somehow, before I knew it, he slipped my baggy flannel nightgown upward and over my head.

"The only thing you are guilty of tonight – is being a wench."

He parted my legs with his knee and I gasped with pleasure as I opened once again to a realm neither mortal nor spirit.


	18. Chapter 18

Oct. 10

I awakened this morning to the loveliest sensation. I was curled up in Daniel's arms, my back to his chest, his breath warm against my neck. His arm draped loosely in the valley between my hips and chest. "Last night was certainly the loveliest I can remember, ever," I said softly, not caring whether he heard me or not. I smiled to myself and was pleasantly surprised to feel his embrace tighten suggestively. I felt safe and aroused at the same time, and nestled backwards, surrendering to the smooth skin and the soft bristle of hair scattered heavily across his chest.

"Daniel," I began again, this time a little more loudly. "I am so glad you convinced me to take this little 'honeymoon' trip to Caribou, away from the children, your mistress the sea, and Martha. And I need to do something special for Patsy when we get back to Gull Cottage."

"The pleasure, naturally, is all mine, Madam. All mine." He lifted my hair and kissed the back of my neck. "You've looked tired in recent days, and with the anniversary of your late husband's death approaching it just seemed the right thing to do. Get away from it all before the Muirs arrive."

That made no sense to me, but I didn't care. Male logic in all of its various forms and glories.

His hand now stroked my breasts, moving from one to the other until my nipples hardened and he pulled me onto my back and then slowly covered my face and neck with light kisses.

I wish I could report it was the beginning of a torrid day of lovemaking, but when he stopped suddenly, I opened my eyes to find his just inches from my face, incredibly blue but terribly sad. I pulled away, and tried to sit up. I'd never seen a look on the Captain's face like this before. The melancholy of the world seemed to have settled across his features. He stroked my chin with his thumb and kissed me gently on the lips, but pensively, as if he was deliberating something deeper and more elemental than even love itself.

"My dear, you are truly happy? Have you no regrets? Have you really made your peace with the senseless way your late husband was gunned down in a botched robbery attempt?"

"Captain, why are you talking in complete sentences? Daniel. Look at me. Why are you asking me right now?" His face registered no expression, although his arm tightened around my waist.

"Of course I've made my peace. Bobby and I were pretty close to being through anyway. I know nobody deserves to die like that, nobody. We've been over this before. If he hadn't been shot in that back alley by the creep, I probably would have killed him myself. No, seriously! No, not really. Things were pretty much over after he cracked that last rib. And if you want the real truth, as far as I know, an angry husband could have shot him. That was my mother's theory. He'd slept with most of Philadelphia. The Muirs covered it up. Whatever happened. I don't think they wanted the entire city to know what really happened. Just about the only thing I agree with them on is it's probably just best to let Jonathan and Candy know their industrious, hard-working saint-of-a-father was shot walking to his car – "

"Shhh, Madam. I didn't mean to anger you so. Seldom have I been insecure in my entire life, but then never have I been so in love, so ruled by a creature of your fair sex, so afraid I could lose you – even to a memory."

"Daniel," quietly, I couldn't believe I was about to tell him the entire truth. "The last time I slept with him was the night Jonathan was conceived. And it wasn't pretty, I mean, he made me, he..."

I started to cry. Why was he going over this at this moment in time? I had no idea what to say now. I had made my peace with Bobby's death a long, long, time ago. Maybe Daniel needed to do the same. He kissed my hair and pulled me towards him, closer than we'd been even before the argument started.

"All is well, Madam. Now if you will sleep, I'll 'pop' over to town and buy several cups of fresh coffee for you."

Not very romantic, but certainly charming in a 19th-century fashion.

"Drama over, Daniel?" I murmured, suddenly tired.

Before I knew it, I was asleep again. When Daniel awakened me, two hours later, the coffee was still hot.


	19. Chapter 19

Oct. 12

Two days until the Muirs arrive and instead of cleaning, making grocery lists for Martha or attending to any practicality I am tied up in a procrastinator's knot over my 500-word article about technology and the crabbing industry. Usually I can find the lede in any article, manipulate a source over the phone into saying something spicy or, at least into making the kind of point that nicely embellishes a yawningly boring topic and keeps me in some demand as a "Yankee" freelancer. Evidently the rest of the country does not understand Pennsylvania is NOT part of New England and that certainly Schooner Bay residents would be horrified to discover anyone considered me a Down Easterner. Mistress of a ghost, hmmm, yes. New Englanders do love their quirks.

Regional articles are paying the bills and I've become so proficient I can grind them out over two or three hours. I try to do all interviews over the phone but for this one I actually had to drive down to Gloucester. For 500 words. Sea Harvest Today really wanted the article, and was willing to pay for expenses. Sadly, the Captain shanghaied me to Caribou soon after the trip to Gloucester so now I sit, morosely trying to recall the exact technical language the factory manager used for grinding crab heads. The smell, however, I'll never forget!

For the record, I do have a blank sheet of typing paper scrolled tightly into the Underwood, staring at me now. Journal, you should be so flattered. The more I procrastinate on that singular piece, the faster flow the words as I jot a wondrous if less-than-literary paean to the beautiful life unfolding around me.

On the drive down from Caribou, Daniel decided it was time for a family meeting about US. "Us?!" I sputtered into the steering wheel. "You're kidding. Right before the Muirs show up? Captain, can't this wait? There isn't going to be any us for the next week or so…"

"Which, Madam, is why I insist upon settling accounts now, before that bloody, blasted ship sails on Saturday." The look of love was gone. In another second he would pull his ear or tug thoughtfully at his beard. Thanks to the size of the front seat, he would be hard pressed to puff his chest. At the thought, I started laughing. "Captain," I teased. "You stopped emoting. Don't glare at me like that! I won't have it!"

"Madam, you are steering straight into a squall, as usual," he huffed then reached for my hand and squeezed it. "My dear, it is time we shared the true nature of our relationship with Candy and the lad. Particularly considering the inbound baggage sailing their way, and issues surrounding loss of a father. He may have died to you years before he was shot, my dear but he's still very much alive to the Muirs. They'll arrive with the father-who-was and the husband-who-should-have-been, and the children will have plenty of questions. They're old enough now to learn more about the man who was their father, even if it's a very rightfully sanitized version."

My eyes stung with tears. Daniel seemed infinitely wise over the past several days, but this I hadn't expected. Had I childishly supposed he would be jealous over another ghost, even one who had never materialized? "Madam." He toyed with my hair, tucking loose strands behind my ear before leaning into my shoulder and kissing my neck. "There are so many unanswered questions for all of you. With due respect to the children, I think it both fitting and appropriate that we at least address their curiosity and concerns about our present arrangement. The future. They may be young but they are wise. I don't suppose it has escaped your notice that Candy has advised Jonathan to knock before he enters our cabin at night?"

I reddened, slightly, well, only slightly, I prayed then realized the Captain would interpret my evident embarrassment as modesty, instead of very vivid recollections of our last night there…"and," he continued, "with all modesty I suggest any and all answers the Muirs have about Robert will lead to questions about us."

I sighed. How do you explain to eight- and nine-year-olds their sainted father was unjustly gunned down but he didn't get to become a ghost. No, their new father is a ghost. But a ghost who can touch them and advise them and take them for grand adventures on the beach – would they think their real father deliberately had chosen to abandon them in his afterlife?

"I know, Carolyn," he whispered. "Forgive me, but I overheard that thought – something, fortunately, that doesn't happen very often. Your eternally feminine mind, Madam –"

With that, I pulled the car off the road, way off the road, placed my head on the proverbial steering wheel and cried. The Captain sat patiently behind me, letting me sob for several minutes before he pried my head off the cold metal and onto his chest. "My darling, it is complicated but not that complicated," said my sudden authority on children. "The important part is they know they are wanted and loved and safe and secure. Like you, my dear."

Tomalley. That was the green stuff. The orange stuff was roe. I shudder. Nasty crab stuff. Back to the writing that pays…


	20. Chapter 20

Oct. 13

Something is going on in this household, right under my nose, and I can't quite put my finger on it.

First I discover my green daybook is gone then, I accidentally happen to discover that Martha knows the Captain. In fact, is in cohoots with him, as in "You old goat, if I ever discover you're playing mind games with me again, I'll –" That was as far as things got before they saw me coming down the stairs. They both played it very cool, the Captain insisting the whole matter revolved around chocolate cookies and Martha rambling on about how she always knew there was a ghost in Gull Cottage because of the constant pilfering of desserts from the kitchen.

Neither one of them made any sense. If the Captain knew Martha at all, he surely would never cross her. And Martha's biggest concern about discovering the existence of a ghost… is how many cookies he might steal? I had a headache and didn't care. Like a change in barometric pressure, the approach of the kindly yet invasive Muirs was enough to bring on the worst kind of migraine. I left the Captain and Martha yammering in the foyer and let myself out the kitchen side door. A walk was very much in order. The day was overcast and the wind carried a harsh hint of the days to come. I turned up the collar on my shearling jacket and walked briskly, head down, onto the very rocky shore. Why this boulder-strewn edge of the Atlantic qualified as a beach was beyond me. As I picked my way around the rocks (it was high tide) I tried to focus on the agenda at hand.

The meeting with the children – and now Martha, we had to include Martha – was scheduled for some time after dinner. Eight bells, I believe was the Captain's more formal time for our family assignation. Our last "family" meeting was about schoolyard beasties who taunted Jonathan that I was a 'ghost-lover" because their parents said so. The Captain never did share with me the discussion he had later that evening with Jonathan. No doubt it involved my honor, my sainted status as a woman and a mother, my delicate femininity and sterling reputation…and his manliness. That conversation, of course, happened before any of us knew the Captain had limited abilities to become tangible to a select few.

Time for dinner. I wonder if we're having chocolate chips for dessert?


	21. Chapter 21

Oct. 14

Meeting with the kids canceled until tonight due to serious thunderstorm which knocked out the power. Muirs arrive tomorrow. Along with the serious cold.

Fortunately it wasn't my turn to carpool this morning but I wasn't so lucky when it came to the kisses good-bye. Linda Coburn was behind the wheel, smiling fakely in my direction. If Candy was to be believed, Mrs. Coburn was the mom who kept stirring the Schooner Bay pot about the Captain and was even brazen enough to joke about him in front of the kids. I could only imagine what she could muster after a martini or two.

"Carolyn," she oozed from behind the wheel of her late-model Ford. "You always look so nice. Doesn't she, Linda. Candy, does your mother ever forget to do her hair and makeup?" Mrs. Coburn's lips curled malevolently at the sides. Candy scowled and slunk deeper into the wagon's back seat. I couldn't resist. "Oh, you know," I rolled my eyes in the direction of Gull Cottage and smiled brightly. "I have to look nice for the men in my life." And I kissed Jonathan broadly on the cheek. As if on cue, the Captain let loose with a loud rumble of thunder and a big gust of wind that seemed destined only for Mrs. Coburn's teased beehive. She glared at me briefly then threw the car into drive and took off down the road. I don't think the Captain really scares her. The thought of his existence annoys her. As in, why hasn't the handsomest man in Schooner Bay bothered to haunt her? And she is a believer. Like most residents, she can't quite let the gossip die but unlike everyone else, she can't keep her thoughts to herself.

"Ah, Madame." My magnificent seaman materialized beside me, chuckling at the car as it abruptly veered to the right and disappeared down Cliff Road. "They quite rightly realize how smitten you are with me."

"Really? I asked as incredulously as possible. "I think the women are just jealous because I'm an unattached, bra-burning women's libber who doesn't need a man to have a fulfilling life…" and the thunder rumbled. "As I was saying," the Captain continued, secure in his pomposity, "It is my special curse to be the invisible consort of a beautiful woman whose honor I can only defend publicly with seemingly random acts of nature."

"Oh, you've used more than that in the past," I remembered, thinking of the many ways he'd hoodwinked most of Schooner Bay at one time or another. "Perhaps," he murmured wickedly into my ear, knowing well what he was doing to me, "Mrs. Coburn and her cohorts are jealous because you have the smile of a woman who's very, very satisfied." I felt no reason to argue that point. I might actually have kissed him there and then, in front of Gull Cottage, the gulls and Scruffy. But --

"Mrs. Muir." It was Martha from the front porch. She cleared her throat loudly. I jumped. "You said you and the Captain wanted to discuss something this morning?" She wiped her hands vigorously on her apron. "Coffee's ready, dear." Although it was Daniel's policy never to touch me in public, for fear an unrealized snoop might wonder about unilateral gestures, he wrapped his arm around my waist and we strode together, up the walkway and into the warmth of Martha's kitchen. The smell was heavenly. Fresh coffee and homemade sticky buns. Martha and the Captain must have reached a truce, because she shooed him into a chair and poured him his coffee. Odd, but she'd never done that for Bobby. Martha nudged a plate of sticky buns in his direction then reached into one of the cabinets. Bailey's for breakfast? I couldn't believe it. The liqueur seemed to be the source of some merriment between Martha and the Captain.

My housekeeper the teetotaler poured a generous dollop into Daniel's cup before topping off her own. "Mrs. Muir, dear?" I politely declined, remembering yesterday's headache. "I'll save my drinking for after the Muirs leave."

"Speaking of the Muirs," Martha asked, "does this have anything to do with their imminent arrival?" She glanced at the Captain, then back at me with one of her shrewdly penetrating glances. Martha never asked a question to which she didn't already know the answer.

"In a manner of speaking," Daniel began, typically prefacing an important point with a qualifying phrase. "Carolyn and I have agreed it is time to discuss the true nature of our relationship with Candy and Jonathan tonight. The arrival of their grandparents, particularly on this, the sad occasion and anniversary of his murder, probably will raise more questions than it might answer for the wee bairns."

"This is the first time since Robert died that I've been involved with anyone at all," I added, my eyes shining at Daniel. "They're not little kids any more. We want to make sure they know it's okay to love and remember Robert even as the Captain becomes more like a father to them –"

"More like a father?" Martha interjected with her usual forcefulness. She glanced at Daniel then pulled a cigarette out of her pocket. Much to my surprise, Daniel leaned forward with a lighter then pulled a thin cigar out of his pea jacket. After several drags and meaningful stares at each other – WHAT IS GOING ON? – Martha continued. "Carolyn, I love you like a daughter and goodness knows I helped raise you.

"But I have news for you: The Captain IS their father. And the only one they've ever known or can remember, I might add. Jonathan's already been asking me if I think you two will get married –" With this, I sputtered out a sip of the coffee (black) I was drinking. "Marriage? We can't even hold hands in Schooner Bay. This certainly isn't a bomb shell I'd care to drop right before the in-laws arrive, even if Daniel had asked me."

The silence was deafening. Daniel reached forward and grasped my hand. "My dear, if we surely could, I would have asked you. Instead, I think we need to assure the children our relationship is permanent, mutually exclusive, and that while I will never be their father, I will do the best I can to become one because I love them very much – and not just because I have some rather strong feelings toward their mother."

It was a rather romantic moment. Until Martha cleared her throat, that is.

"I think the bigger issue is how you're going to explain why you're a ghost and their real father isn't," she harrumphed. "Although if his spirit ever blackens this doorway –" Thankfully, Daniel cut her off at the pass. "Martha, actually, even I can't explain these matters as such. There is, however, a strong presupposition on my part that ghosts are the spirits of those not ready for heaven, for those who have what I suppose you could call, unfinished business. I daresay that mine – at first was clearing my name about the suicide everyone presumed I had committed.

"If I may," my wonderful Captain continued, "I do believe someone unbeknownst to me or you had different plans." He looked me lovingly in the eyes. "I do not mean to sound morbid, but I truly believe you, if I dare to sound presumptuous, are my family. One I could not, would not, ever leave, unless Carolyn so requested. And, even then…"

"What if I were to die, and I know this sounds morbid," I suggested. "Madame," he answered huskily. "You are my soulmate."

Tears sprang, unbidden, as they say, to my eyes. I blinked quickly to staunch them. Perhaps he could not answer this question directly, but I knew the answer and silently vowed to live as long and rich a life as I possibly could, for the children's sake.

"If you don't mind me saying so," Martha added, "you'd better realize that anything you say can and will be used against you when the sweet little darlings become teenagers. As for right now, don't be caught off guard if Candy wonders whether she'll have a little sister anytime soon. Sorry, Carolyn, but it is a natural question for a little girl."

I laughed nervously and glanced askance at Daniel. He drew himself into his best naval senior-officer posture or, as Martha said later, puffed his chest like a peacock, and offered, "Madam, you are the very first inamorata I have ever had in my too-long afterlife. I would love to give Carolyn another baby, but I strongly feel it impossible in my current situation."

"Thank goodness," I thought silently. Daniel would have to take a pass on this one, even if he were alive. I have no desire for more children. I don't think it selfish that I want Daniel, Candy and Jonathan all to myself. Nor do I want the risk of delivering another premature baby.

This ended the morning chat and conversation turned to matters of more earthly concern, such as sheets for the Muirs, whether or not they would take us out to eat two nights or three, and the possibility they might try, once again, to abscond with Jonathan in order to enroll him in his father's private school, Dexter Academy. Also, Martha and I secured a promise from the Captain that he would not harass them if we wouldn't ask Claymore to serve as a Captain surrogate.

As for the evening Q&A with the kids…the conversation followed Martha's to a "T." It ended with loving hugs all the way around. Candy loves the Captain dearly, but it is Jonathan who has captured his very heart. I distinctly heard him say, as we all headed for bed, "Captain, you're the best dad a kid could have."

"Aye, mate," he replied. "You are all I ever wanted in a son."


	22. Chapter 22

Oct. 15

I was to have left for the one-hour drive to the Portland airport at 9 a.m. Instead, I awakened at 7 a.m. to a penetrating cold in the house. Where did this come from? Windows were frosted over. I'll get up in 15 minutes, I thought, as good at procrastinating over waking as I am at writing. I snuggled deeper into the featherbed and pulled the comforter over my head. The blasted Captain never spent the entire night with me. Otherwise I'd still be warm, lying in his arms. Instead, his side of the bed was almost icy. The least he could do, I thought in my semi-alert stupor, is bring me coffee and light a fire in my blasted fireplace. I rolled onto my stomach, determined to enjoy my little window of warmth, only to feel a soft slap on my very well-insulated rear end.

"Madame," that wonderful, sonorous voice. "No doubt you are greatly in need of my wonderful physique and warm, bristly chest hair but, at the moment, I fear matters above the down comforter are more compelling than even those below." I smelled the coffee. He was right. Nothing trumped coffee. I rolled over, and propped myself reluctantly on the pillows. "Daniel Gregg," I whined petulantly, eyes half open as he handed me a generous cup of my favorite stimulant. "Please tell me we've had an unexpected winter storm and all of the roads and airports have been closed."

"Aye, Madame, they have." He paused to brush a strand of hair out of my face and I kissed his hand and tried to nestle my cheek into its palm. The news tried to sink in, but my very own Old Spice man was interfering with rational thought. Daniel wasn't finished. "The barometer registered –" but here I cut him off, desirous of something more than a lecture in nautical atmospherics. "Really? It snowed? That badly?" The corners of my mouth rose straight into a loopy grin. Such pleasing news. I smiled at the Captain over my steaming mug of black coffee. The intensity in his eyes burned through mine. I'm not sure why, but I blushed and had to break contact. "I suppose you listened to the radio with Martha?" I asked as demurely as possible.

"No, m'dear, I rather anxiously turned it on myself at 3 a.m., concerned for your welfare and rather hoping the inevitable could be postponed. To my delight, all airports in Philadelphia and New England are closed and what you call troopers, I believe, have set up roadblocks to keep travelers home. There is some talk of black ice. According to your pundits, this is the worst October storm since the blizzard of 1910. Not even the snow plows are out." He paused, thoughtfully, and toyed with that ear of his. He must have read my next thought: "As circumstances are so dire, I've taken the liberty of bestowing both Martha and the children with several extra hours of slumber – and, I've turned up the heat and lit fires in all hearths so the house will be shipshape and warm when they do awaken."

"Several hours?" I asked. Amazing that he could do that. He sat facing me on the bed, entwining my free hand in both of his. The Muirs, the kids, the weather, Martha -- all were forgotten. The glow of the fire dimly illuminated the Captain's face and our world once again shrank to the shores of this beautiful antique bed. "And I, how shall you keep me warm?" I whispered guilelessly, suspended in the moment of his making.

"Not with sleep, my dear." He leaned forward and kissed me, mindful of the drink in my lap. "But finish your coffee. I went to extraordinary lengths to make it as strong as you like it." Again, those eyes. Those blue, blue eyes. What was he talking about? He probably brewed it with a snap of his fingers. I took a sip and relaxed into the pillows, listening to the hiss of the logs and reveling in a sense of completeness I had never felt with any other man. Daniel leaned forward and kissed my neck and I wrapped my free arm around his shoulders, which, not incuriously, were suddenly sweater-free. His skin smelled of the sea, the cold, and a pleasantly mild cigar smoke. He pulled away. "Drink, my darling."

The coffee was too hot to swallow quickly but I realized passion would have to wait. Little things like bringing coffee to a paramour were new to Daniel Gregg's repertoire and to not finish would be an affront to his nascent domesticity. "Ok, then," I breathed. "While I relish the exquisite bouquet of this wonderful brew perhaps you might care to answer the question Candy asked last night."

"Which one?" he smiled. "I thought we dealt succinctly and honestly with all the questions Jonathan and Candy presented – even about marriage." Here I swallowed a little too quickly, burning the back of my throat even as I struggled to keep the cup level. "Daniel," I laughed. "Jonathan got you good on that one. I hope you have a ring somewhere up there in the wheelhouse."

I continued: "Candy, my darling seaman, wanted to know how we could stay married when I grow old and ugly, as she put it, and you stay the same." My voice waivered in slight trepidation. No matter how we pretended otherwise, in 10 years I would be older than the Captain was when he died. I would continue to age, naturally, into a skinny mortal coil of wrinkles and age spots. Would he still love me then? Or, would he treat me as he had his maiden aunt, with chaste dignity and respect? My voice may have sounded light, but I needed to know the answer. I needed to know he would love me no matter what.

"But I did answer the child," he murmured, unbuttoning my flannel nightgown. I deposited my cup on the nightstand and wound my hands into the curls at the nape of his neck. I sighed as his tongue flickered then pulled my nipple into his mouth. My eyes closed as my back arched and my head fell backwards onto the pillow. And then he stopped.

"Look at me, my darling." I opened my eyes to find a greatly aged Daniel Gregg hovering above me. That noble, noble face still handsome at age 70 or so, eyes as alive and as full of love as ever. I felt foolish for even doubting, and pulled him down on top of me, my arms wrapped ever so tightly around his neck. "Candy thought I was still quite handsome," he whispered into my ear. "Dashing, I believe, was her exact word, certainly the last she uttered before she fell asleep."

He must have felt the warm tears spilling down the side of my face, for he pulled me tighter. "There is nothing you could ever do or say that would cause me to leave you, my darling. And you will be as desirous to me at seventy as you are at thirty-five. To eternity and beyond. As for now, I'm feeling more like a twenty-year-old junior officer on shore leave…"

His subsequent demonstration was so convincing he was forced to "give" Candy and Jonathan several hours of additional sleep, so tired was I after several convincing demonstrations of his unbridled love. I drifted to sleep, happily ensconced in his arms and bristly chest hair. Martha, he told me later, was allowed to waken at 9 a.m. to draw her own conclusions. I'm not sure why Daniel is so careful around her, but I don't particularly care. Whatever is going on between them is really none of my business, although I suspect there's something they think they're hiding from me.

We spent the rest of the day in front of the fireplace downstairs. Candy taught Daniel how to play Monopoly and how to catch Jonathan at cheating. When power returned, the kids convinced Daniel to move the TV upstairs so they could bask in electronic glow of afternoon cartoons. Martha and I sat at the kitchen table, gossiping benignly about the Muirs. Even as we spoke, road crews were out as the afternoon sun began melting the early morning's havoc. Such is the way of unseasonable storms. The weather "warmed" from 30 degrees into the low 40s – Maine's idea of a heat wave. All roads would be open the next morning, and the Muirs were expected in on an afternoon flight. They called, and Jonathan and Candy chattered excitedly with their grandparents just before bed.

"I'm glad they're coming," Jonathan told me. "Even if we can't tell them about our new Dad, they can tell us about our old one."

"Aye, lad," his hero replied. And we all retired for the evening, perhaps not a conventional family but inextricably bound together for life – and beyond.


	23. Chapter 23

Oct. 16

I remember once listening to my Dad chatting with a dinner guest, an attorney who specialized in family law. Like most semi-affluent Philadelphian men of their generation, they'd retired to my father's study to smoke cigars and mull serious matters over brandy or, as my mother suspected, double-malt whiskey.

My maman, as I pretentiously referred to her from ages 14 to 16 or so, was stuck in time between the suffragettes of the 1920s and the bra-burners of today. She sat forlornly on the front porch trying to entertain the man's wife with some semblance of ladylike grace. Not that my father's conversation would have interested her. A thick book or a master's level class in Renaissance Art at Wellesley – that might have got her attention. Why am I writing this? Tired.

The point with which I meant to open this journal entry – sit up Carolyn – is that as I lay eavesdropping outside my father's study door, both bored and stupefied by the heat, I overheard the lawyer and my father ruminating on the slow but steadily growing phenomenon of divorce. Up until now, I'd considered this the province of the very unlucky or very déclassé few. Their conversation had no relevance for me, alas, and I was considering sneaking out the kitchen door to visit the boy next door.

Then my father dropped the A-word. "Adultery, Bruce, adultery. What happened to good, old-fashioned adultery?" There was a muted chuckling followed no doubt by cigar puffs and swirling of sweaty brandy glasses. "Mark my words," what's-his-name replied, "divorce will never be in vogue. As I tell my clients, never leave your wife for another woman. In three years, you'll be just as bored with that other woman as you are with your wife! Divorce is just too much trouble when you can get the milk for free!"

I was stunned. It never occurred to me that any of my prospective husbands could grow tired of kissing, heavy petting and (I hoped) much more – with me! -- in just three years. Usually it was we girls who did the dumping. Did things change that much after marriage? Why? My teenaged mind could not quite wrap itself around this conundrum. The only thing it might explain was why my mother was sitting on the porch listening to that vacuous woman ramble.

That would never be me, I swore. Of course it was. Just six years later, I wed Bobby Muir and adultery grew exponentially in my life from lower-case to capital A. As the lawyer predicted so long ago, my marriage lasted and lasted and lasted…because Bobby Muir got away with it. What was I supposed to do, divorce him and lose everything I'd built for the children? I had become my mother.

Bobby's gone, but the detritus of his life still cuts a wide swath through mine. Specifically, Ralph and Marjorie and their lifestyle, money and perceived influence over Jonathan and Candy. All delivered here, right to my front door today.

Where my true-love haunts. Could my hundred-year-old spirit also be a three-year kind of guy? Where would I go with the kids if he did? I don't know why I'm even harboring these kinds of thoughts. Last night, Daniel left absolutely no doubt about his sincere intentions to age right along with me. It's just that the Muirs flew in and maybe I am not strong enough to break free of the undertow of our shared past. Mixed metaphors…but I live on the edge of a vast ocean. They make me feel like the old Carolyn, subjugated and dependent instead of liberated and powerful, rightly and deliberately choosing to educate Jonathan and Candy equally, at Schooner Bay Elementary. Dexter Academy indeed.

So, how to live in the present with the ghosts of two very different pasts? The one, hear-and-now ghost v. the thankfully dearly departed spirit who haunts me with his parents?

The odd thing is that Captain Gregg, with all of his pompous, overblown and overbearing attitudes about female frippery and treachery, is actually the most modern of us all. He lives in the moment, whether it's relishing a well-timed rumble of thunder or quizzing Candy on math facts. He may be arrogant beyond belief and infuriating beyond words, but he believes in a modern me, a woman who can support and raise a family without interference from anyone else save him, of course. He despises the Muirs, not because of Bobby, but because of the way they talk to Candy or dismiss my slightest accomplishments. Ralph Muir, born with two silver spoons in his mouth, thinks nothing of the editorial prestige I incur when the Times asks me for a 500-word piece on Coastal Maine. He's more concerned about my lack of status here, and the opinions of his friends, whom I haven't seen in years.

Now look who's on a high horse. It's just that now, at the beginning of Ralph and Marjorie's weeklong visit, I am beginning to realize how very timely the Captain is, and what a truly an ardent supporter he has become of my "rights," as they say today.

My Daniel. He's materialized behind me now, trying to peer at my writing while pretending to kiss the top of my head. So I close tonight. Wait! Unbelievable. "Three years?" he asks. "My darling, we'll just be getting started at five." I take back everything I've written, Daniel Gregg. Stop grabbing my pen! Yes I know modern men are fools. There's nothing like a good, old-fashioned fantasy of a virile sea captain to keep a young lovely widow in her place! All right! I submit.


	24. Chapter 24

Oct. 17

You don't realize how perfectly isolated Schooner Bay is until you have guests when Maine weather turns cold. This morning's thermometer fell to 20F and the wind steadily increased throughout the day. Twenty degrees is actually warm to us but too chilly and too blustery, say my in-laws, for forays into town or anywhere else, for that matter -- "if Maine even has an anywhere else," Ralph scowled. Marjorie and I visited Schooner Bay's two coffee shops and one antique store in August. She found them neither quaint nor charming, especially compared to "the museum you're living in, my dear." Maine's rocky, jagged seascapes mean nothing to the Muirs-of-Philadelphia, who much prefer the gently rolling and pleasantly verdant Pennsylvania hills. Driving an hour or so to Amish country – that's their idea of an outing. (I've futilely argued that Camden is just an hour away, offering both mountains, forest AND a gentle bay not dissimilar to that of Greenwich.)

And so it was that Ralph, Marjorie, myself, and the white-elephant-named-Bobby-Muir spent a good part of the day in the sitting room, arguing about the children's education and my plans for the future. Oh, that other white elephant, aka lack-of-an-appropriate-suitor-for-me-and-good-replacement-dad-for-Jonathan parked itself in front of the fireplace. The real ghost-in-the-room had literally vanished into thin air, leaving me bereft of any meaningful companionship. I hoped my mental curses and unspoken plaintive pleas were strong enough to rise all the way up to the Wheelhouse, where I imagined the Captain sharing a large glass of Madeira with Martha. Blast them both.

Jonathan and Candy already are semi-bored with Ralph's stories about Bobby (they're always the same). Besides, Bobby's childhood antics can't compare to the ones they've already shared with or heard from Captain Gregg. There are great similarities between the love the kids have for their dad and the love they hold for their grandparents. It's imagined love, what should-be's mingled with dollops of insincere guilt. Or am I just being cynical?

Now, on to Captain Daniel Elias Gregg. Damn him! After a day of hyphenated companionship I had rather hoped I might skulk upwards to our cabin, anticipating a gentle foot rub, a warming glass of sherry, tender assurances, cornflower-blue eyes of compassion and the ever-present hint of erotic embraces. Au contraire, as Candy and her giggly girlfriends whisper over the phone. Au contraire. Not even a fire. Not a hint of sympathy. No verbal foreplay. Not even a smolder of romance. There he sat at the typewriter, pecking intently away at the modern convenience, not even worried he might be overheard by the Muirs. Beside my beloved gray machine sat at least 20 sheets of stacked paper. The manuscript I'd placed neatly in front of the typewriter last night somehow had wafted page-by-page to the floor, forming a pale crescent in the front of the captain's desk (NOTE: lower-case c, as in the style of desk used on the blasted schooners or clippers or whatever the blasted Captain sailor used to sail, not HIS desk).

"Daniel?" I tried not to hiss, suddenly angry yet unexpectedly tearing up at the sight of his rather smug face. I realized instantly what he'd done. He was redrafting my manuscript to include pointed descriptions of the kisses and embraces I'd selected for the heroine of my story. If history was any guide, he probably thought I'd thank him for his editorial inclusions, given the scandalous yet wildly successful nature of our last "collaboration" for a romance magazine. He didn't bother to look up or answer. This did not bode well. Smug and pleased were the same to him. Unaccustomed as he had been, in his previous life, to sustained female companionship, the Captain could easily miss an emotion fired over the port bow of his obduracy (rhymes with idiocy). Tap tap tap.

"Madam, my dear, sit down, have a brandy –" here he waved distractedly if magnanimously at the sifter sitting on the end table by the couch. "I've almost finished embellishing our novel. I've quite spiced up your rather tepid descriptions of love on the high seas. In fact, you might recognize several of the, ahem, shall I say, fashions in which the man –"

He didn't bother to duck as my house slipper sliced right through his incorporeal head. "In fact," he continued in a pointedly unperturbed manner, "you're the inspiration for the scene where the heroine, tremulously quivering in anticipation of the seaman's ravishing hands. . . " He couldn't ignore or miss the unmistakable thud of my coffee cup on the bloody foredeck of his blasted captain's desk.

"My God, Madam, have you taken leave of whatever senses the Muirs have left you today?" He rose arrogantly, pulling his shoulders backward, placing his hands behind his back and his planting his feet solidly apart as if preparing for a squall. He tipped his head backward, thrusting his beard outward so that his eyes stared downward at me in a most impecunious fashion. I might as well have been a stowaway on one of his blasted ships. Blast that word. Blast. The look he gave me broached no measure of our understanding, love, or even our co-commitment to raising two children under very difficult circumstances. It was meant to scowl me into immediate submission. "Do you want to sell novels or do you want to beg that sniveling nephew of mine for money and repairs every time something breaks on this ship?" I glared back, ignoring his remark. Sensing he was getting nowhere with me (or so I fantasized) he switched to his next ace-in-the-hole, the children. "Women love to imagine they're being ravished by dashing 19th-century seaman. Love it! This should fetch a handsome sum so we can amply provide for the children's needs. You can afford to sign Jonathan up for Sailing Camp this June and Candy –"

"You're going to wish you were a poodle when I get through with you Daniel Gregg." I snatched the pages from the desk, angrily scanning them for his pornographic vignettes. "The last time I checked, lovemaking was consensual. Which, by the way, this novel is not. I did not ask you for help with the romantic scenes. And for your information, no 20th-century woman wants to be grabbed by the grubby hands of a lovesick sailor who fondles breasts with all of the subtlety of a pirate snatching booty from a sinking freighter. I will not be party again to your sordid verbiage that makes victims out of genuine heroines –"

I was so furious I didn't even bother to brush the hair from my eyes. I was breathing hard while blinking back tears. My chest heaved. The clock ticked ominously. I followed the Captain's eyes down to the top of my nightgown. To my huge chagrin, it had dropped precipitously when I flung the coffee mug at him, the strap falling from my shoulder, my robe undone by my action. The scene was unfolding like a truly bad romance novel. Our quarrel might have ended there, leading pleasantly to bed, but for the salacious leer with which he chose to confront me. "I rest my case," he intoned. Incredibly, there was a tap at the door. It was Martha. She cracked it inward but did not look into the cabin.

"Mrs. Muir, dear, whatever you're doing is raising eyebrows downstairs. If you're going to kill the Captain, please remember he's already dead." The door closed behind her.

"My dear, every woman likes to be ravished . . . in a fashion," the Captain continued, non-plussed, his bedroom eyes on full display.

"Not in my novels," I retorted. "And if you ever try to touch me again in such a roguish fashion it will be the last time you ever stand watch in my quarters." I strode melodramatically toward the bed and tossed down the covers. No doubt everyone could hear my stomping feet. I didn't care. The Muirs thought I was Grace Kelly cold anyway. This might give them pause for thought. But I did lower my voice. "How dare you wait until I'm trapped with the Muirs to undertake such an underhanded redrafting of my work? You probably did this on purpose. I thought you loved me. I thought you cared. All this time I'm down there suffering fools while you're up here making a fool out of me!"

"I make a fool out of you?" He grabbed me by the shoulders and pressed me into the wall by the headboard, pinning my wrists above my head. "I will not be cuckolded by your temper, m'dear. It will be a cold day in hell before I stand watch in these quarters again."

"Watch the literary license," I spat back. Again, my chest heaved. I was breathing heavily, this time out of my mouth. Daniel pushed the lock of hair out of my eyes, smoothing it gently to the side, stroking the side of my face with such tenderness I almost surrendered.

"Unhand me!" I managed to sputter just as his mouth closed over mine. Squirming, I tried to push him away even as my body responded to his pressure and my jaw slackened with desire. The Captain ignored me. He was deliberate, not rough, but his advances were uninvited and I tried valiantly to remain furious. For five seconds or so. I simply could not resist him, arrogant ass or not, and I knew that he knew it. But neither could he. Resist me. We wanted each other desperately. I loved him beyond measure. But his pride was worse than mine. I was worried he indeed might take me at my word and dematerialize to the widow's walk, where I've known him to sulk on occasion. There was but one way to save his face, and every heroine who really loves her man knows exactly what it is – to encourage the ravishing by writhing as best she can in feigned protest. This was consensual sex at its finest. A little rough, true. I pressed against him as I pretended to pull my wrists from his grip. I felt the length of him against me, hard and incredibly solid. My head fell backwards and my knees buckled, unbidden.

"Just like in the novel, my dear," he whispered, his hand on my breasts, his mouth at my ear. "The heroine succumbs to the Captain's ministrations."

"My dearest Daniel," I sighed, my hands suddenly free and very occupied on the suddenly unclothed lower portion of his torso. "Prepare to be boarded by a very modern woman."


	25. Chapter 25

Oct. 20

I love walking the beach at night, secure in the knowledge no roaming binoculars or roving eyes watch as I pick my way through our very private beach. Who might watch, and why? Probably no one. It's just that the consequences of some snoop or drunken teenager hiding along Cliff Road, watching me chat with an invisible presence, could be very costly. I may not care that locals like to invent a spectral love-life for me, but I would mind if Jonathan or Candy heard someone talking about "that crazy Mrs. Muir." The more I'm around the Captain, the easier it is to forget he is, after all, primarily an invisible presence to everyone else. It would be wrong to say we're "just that comfortable" together. It's more like, his presence – invisible or not – electrifies my every waking moment. I stand straighter, eyes wider, dress with him in mind…but at night, here on the beach, nobody eavesdrops, snoops, or passes judgment. "They wouldn't dare," Claymore apprised me yesterday in a low, dimple-quivering whisper. "Not after dark. Even Principal Hampton's afraid of the rumors, and won't deny he's seen and heard some strange things over at Gull Cottage. Nighttime on a deserted beach? No way." Yet here, his chin quivered and he sucked in his lower lip so far he almost swallowed his next thought: "It's you they're not sure of. I mean, everyone in Schooner Bay knows about old spook-face. It's you, Mrs. Muir. What is a lady like you doing in Gull Cottage with HIM?"

Me? I wondered tonight. Me in my casual chic, my Evan Picone dresses and my Mikimoto pearl strand. Carolyn-of-the-Muirs-of-Philadelphia, a respected if rigidly socially stratified family of wealth and privilege. My eyes widened. Me, a size-six stranger to any whiff of scandal. A widow and model of propriety seeking a quiet new life in a quiet little town (or should I say fleeing Philadelphia to start a new life without in-laws?). Yes, you, I chided myself, pulling the shearling jacket even tighter around my shivering form. You, whose idea of a good time is four hours of uninterrupted typing. I sidestepped the waves lapping ever closer to my feet.

Me/mine/my love is truly the kind that dare not say its name. I've fallen so deeply in love with a ghost that the odd circumstances of his otherworldly existence seem like second nature. My jaw slackens and eyes darken with desire at the very thought of Captain Gregg. Me, that Muir woman! "Still waters run verry deep," I overheard Mrs. Post intone coyly at the last PTA meeting on Friday, cocking her head in my direction. I believe I was staring out the window, pondering my ethereal love-hate relationship with his Magnificence instead of working out the details on activities for Candy's class's Halloween party. Is the Captain right? Do I look that satisfied? Am I considered scandalous, or are they just relieved to have someone in town to occupy and mellow their mercurial spirit? Do they want me to flee back to Philadelphia, or are they afraid I might?

"You're cursed by your looks, Mrs. Muir," Martha harrumphed one evening. "You're too pretty to be stuck out here without a serious boyfriend, widow or not. You've been on everyone's radar screen since the Captain tossed that series of potential suitors knocking on your door. And that good-looking Irish fellow didn't hang around very long either." Yet who in Schooner Bay would openly dare or care to accuse me of impropriety…with a ghost?

Tonight, on the beach, I relish the symphonic racket the tide makes as it lifts and displaces thousands of rocks on its journey in and out of our little cove. I stare at the waves rushing past my now-wet sneakers, hoping to see two very large feet materialize in front of me, planted sturdily in the sand a foot apart. I listen to the Atlantic's rhythmic roar, punctuated by cold spray and the surrendering hiss of the retreating tide.

I've won, mighty Atlantic, I think wryly. I am his mistress now.

"It's you they're not sure of."

I ran smack into Marjorie as I returned to Gull Cottage, entering via the kitchen door. I'd rather hoped my absence had gone unnoticed. Instead, I found Marjorie and Ralph in jackets, their faces evidently flushed from the same wintry wind I'd fought all the way up the cliff stairs. They seemed edgy. And still shivering. Had they been spying on me?

"Were you looking for me?" I stared at the two of them. With a generous sweep of his hand, Ralph invited me to sit at my own kitchen table to enjoy a cup of my own Earl Grey. This did not augur well. Neither did the sudden appearance of Captain Gregg, who seated himself in the small window alcove behind me.

"Madame, it is high time we jettisoned these stowaways," he murmured tautly into my ear. "They're trying to prove something's wrong with you so they can shanghai my crew back to Philadelphia. I want them off my ship!" I sighed, and wished the Captain could give me something more than over-the-shoulder support. A warm hand on my shoulder would be nice, for starters. Instead, he too was on edge, ready to 'keel-haul' anyone brazen enough to threaten his ship's integrity. I thought longingly of those silly TV shows like Bewitched, where the spunky heroine constantly fights and acts silly to protect her secret. If this were a TV sitcom, I could giggle or roll my eyes out of this situation. If Marjorie were my mother instead of my despised mother-in-law, I might surrender my precious information, knowing she truly has my best interests at heart. But Marjorie's and my family's best interests do not align. She wants Bobby's only legacy back in Philadelphia, where their pedigrees belong.

Here, dripping chilled righteousness on my kitchen floor, it's clear she thinks there's a possible case to be made for our return: My mental condition.


	26. Chapter 26

Oct. 21

I was still writing last night when a very surprisingly un-angry ghost grabbed my pen and ushered me to bed. I believe he said, "My dear…' and extended his ethereal hand and tucked me under covers. I remember those tender eyes, which made his order less of a command and more of an act-of-love. This sailor ("seaman, Madame") knows how to navigate the far reaches of my heart. He gently undressed me, and I let him – I was so tired – then lay down beside me, his arm wrapped around my waist. I fell into a very deep, dreamless sleep. "We'll steer clear of any shoals tonight, my love," I believe is the last thing I heard him say. Captain Gregg has been told to stay out of my mind – or else – but I'm rather sure he knows how to enter, uninvited, when the occasion warrants, so I will consider my heavy slumber a much-needed gift. Even if I was looking forward to crying myself senseless in his reassuring embrace.

I don't ever want to forget the sequelae that followed my walk. How could I be so naïve? I let Marjorie attend one of the early room-mother meetings for Candy's class Halloween party. Now I know none of the twittering Schooner Bay moms would share local gossip with the Muirs. Claymore told me that everyone in town is afraid outsiders might hear of their local legend and try to turn Schooner Bay into another 'strange Maine' tourist destination. It's happened to other haunted mansions, but usually those within a half-hour's driving distance of Portland. I think the locals also are afraid of Captain Gregg. When you consider every single individual in that town grew up steeped in local lore and has survived at least one of the Captain's stunts, it's hard to tell whether they consider him enduringly benign and eccentric or just downright scary. Still, there's a third reason I think even the likes of the Coburns and Posts would protect me: The town has accepted us as one of them – a process which usually takes, say, between 100 and 300 years. Martha pointed this out. When we failed to run, screaming from Gull Cottage in a reasonable amount of time (two days, five?) she says Ed told her we sort of became honorary Greggs because "he's accepted you." Whether our tacit resident status is due to local suspicions about Daniel or, represents an empathic response to our continued subjection to the whims of money-grubbing Claymore Gregg, I don't know. Somehow, our acceptance of their spectral native son proved our ticket to permanent resident status.

So what happened with Marjorie? Nothing was said at the Halloween party. She overheard the village urchins on the playground talking, only this time it wasn't Jonathan's friends, it was the all-knowing, all-seeing fifth graders who provided the titillation. "We get to trick-or-treat at Gull Cottage this year 'cause mom says Mrs. Muir is keeping Captain Gregg plenty happy these days and he won't be mean if we go up there." Something like this. I thought I'd thought of everything that could possibly go wrong by leaving Marjorie unattended at Schooner Bay Elementary, but somehow recess slipped my mind. That is the last place one would ordinarily find Marjorie Muir and her Mamie Eisenhower pocketbook, but I imagine she trotted right out behind Candy's teacher, Mrs. Simpson, too afraid she might miss something, and right into the salacious world of 10- and 11-year-old brats.

Last night, when she and Ralph gently urged me to "sit down, dear…" they were primed for war, armed with these absurdly funny (if deadly accurate) comments. Marjorie doesn't believe in spirits ("so Catholic, my dear"), so she couldn't possibly have taken the little Posts at their words. I've learned, as I've aged, that specifics of events aren't as important as how the events make people feel. Marjorie probably felt very vindicated by her recess eavesdropping. To her mind, she now had conviction, if not proof, that Carolyn really is as eccentric as she suspects, proof my little family has found too much life-after-Philadelphia, proof I am not living up to the Muir legacy, and proof it is time to remove their precious blue-blooded DAR grandchildren from the biggest backwater in Maine.

A normal person might have laughed the whole thing off, but I am not yet stable. The peace and tranquility I feel at Gull Cottage, where so far I have managed to hold my own against in-laws and family, has not seeped deep enough into my soul yet. I still am woefully insecure about my ability to provide for my children, and terribly afraid to turn over all of the stones left unexamined during my marriage to Bobby. And then there is Captain Gregg. I remain petrified that somehow, it's all too good to be true. That everything that has conspired since July might somehow turn out to be a dream, that Captain Gregg might call the whole thing off, that – I don't know. The list goes on and on.

Thus I overreacted to Marjorie because she overreacted to the gossip. The only thing the Muirs can stand less than the idea of my raising Jonathan and Candy in this "backwater" is the idea that their blue-blooded DAR family could be the object of any derision by anyone beneath their social standing. Hence they found me twice guilty, of besmirching both the family and my children's names. "Carolyn, dear," Marjorie began again, this time with more condescension, "your little Maine adventure just isn't working out. For anyone. Especially you. Ralph and I really think you're beginning to crack under the strain. I mean, really, all of this talk of you and a ghost? Surely dear you must be encouraging it somehow. And this house, well, it's obvious you're living in a state of disrepair amid conditions which just are not acceptable to any normal person…"

And so the gloves were off. For the first time, I understand what it truly means to deny the most precious part of your reality, to make light of the central fact of your very existence in order to protect the thing you love the most. Up until now, my denials of Captain Gregg had extended to what could only be described as light comedic moments, like chasing books in library or appearing to talk to thin air. This, however, was deadly serious. Marjorie intended to use the one thing Jonathan, Candy, Martha and I depend upon most as proof we urgently needed to return to her sphere of influence. While I intellectually understand it would be almost impossible for her to successfully petition a court of law to intervene "in the children's best interests," I also am inordinately afraid of the damage she and her Philadelphia lawyers could wreak on my budget should the whim so suit them. They could tie me up in litigation for years. I think my mother is pretty immune from Marjorie's charms, but my father is a wild card here. Daddy simply cannot be predicted and probably would genuinely testify that, as a writer, I am prone to vivid imaginings attributable to my messed up self.

But Captain Gregg suffers from no such reservations or doubts. "Madame," he barked indignantly from behind my back, after a few moments of stunned silence, "repeat after me."

And so I followed his lead, my face flushing, my anger mounting at the veracity of his repeated words. "Marjorie, have you been reading too much Henry James? In which trope do I currently reside? Am I a haunted heroine with a checkered past? Well, that part checks. Bobby Muir I mean. He was engaged in some very questionable after-hours proclivities. Am I sexually repressed or traumatized? Well, check that one, too. Again, the credit goes to dear Robert. Who wouldn't be after repeatedly forced to endure his illicit wanderings? Do I have perceptive kids and an acerbic housekeeper? Check! Absolutely, in fact THEY are the ones who spotted the ghost first! Do I know I'm being haunted? Check again – by you! You repeatedly materialize on my doorstep with hidden agendas that have nothing to do with Jonathan and Candy. Am I making up stories about cohabitating with a virile ghost? Well, who wouldn't fantasize about sleeping with someone like Captain Gregg!" Ok, here he went too far, and I blushed. I must say, though, he captured my speech and cadences quite well. There was nothing 19th-century in his nuance.

This is where things got very dicey. On my own, I volunteered: "Why don't we go upstairs and find "The Turn of the Screw" so we can complete your little scenario about what does or doesn't go on in my fecund imagination. How dare you come into my home and snoop around my children's playground in search of evidence that I am an unfit mother. Your son was an unfit husband and father, and if I have to find peace and security for my children hundreds of miles away from Philadelphia, so be it! If I dally with every ghost in every haunted mansion along the way, so be it! The only haunting that's going on here is Robert's s memory, and I'm pretty sure even he would have gone to the light by now, even if only to get away from you!"


	27. Chapter 27

Oct. 23

"Trope, Captain?" We walked the beach this morning, my arm tucked surreptitiously in his. I tried not to look at him. Now that I know I fit a profile of another writer's making…I would hate to fuel any further fires of speculation about my sanity should someone be spying on us from Cliff Road. ("Inanity quickly turns to insanity," Martha vouched for the Captain over breakfast.)

"Trope, Madame," he continued. "Mr. Henry James virtually invented the 'is-she/isn't-she sexually repressed AND quite possibly a delusional female who sees ghosts' category." Here, I elbowed him. "Those aren't tropes per se, Captain, they're characteristics of a literary category. Are we a ghost story or a romance? Or a romantic ghost story that fits a profile? What do you mean by 'our trope?' Where do we really fit?

"I first read 'The Turn of the Screw' when it was serialized in Colliers magazine around the turn of the century," he said, kicking a piece of driftwood out of my way. "The Schooner Bay Library had to triple its subscription just to keep up with the enormous demand; why, there'd been nothing like it since Charles Dickens." Here, he had the temerity to chuckle and launch into one of his characteristic sidebars about his perceived virility amongst the hysterical women types who (according to him) populated coastal Maine following the magazine's U.S. release in 1899. "Mediums were quite the rage in the late Victorian…"

I was prepared to let this ramble on to its logical conclusion about his male superiority when he stopped in mid-stride.

"Madame," he turned to face me, suddenly serious. "Mr. James was a perspicacious observer of a, shall we say, very spiritual nature. I believe, in his characterization of the governess, he left her motivation up to the reader who in turn reveals his or her own inherent biases by his or her very own interpretation of the story. Therefore, any observation I make as to which trope you or we belong to would at best be subjective in nature and at worst…"

"Fodder for another one of our arguments?" He had me now. I was more than a little unexpectedly irritated, and not the least because he was beginning to sound like a combination of my high school English teacher and my Philadelphia therapist. He was beginning to make sense.

"My dear," he began wistfully, "I fully admired your spunk that first day in Gull Cottage, when you dared to cast aspersions on my character, calling me a cowardly ghost. But only someone with much to lose would have dared to proffer such a challenge to a spirit. Your very independence was at stake, after all. Your sanity called into question – Marjorie's words, I believe – by your very attempt to flee your rich in-laws and establish a modicum of distance between your past and your future. That in and of itself is a trope. A spunky heroine in face of circumstance. As for your sexuality, well, I have some experience in these matters, and it was very clear to me that, at our very first meeting, you had been dealt an unfair hand in affairs of the heart."

Which was pounding by now, of course. But how did he know so much about my relationship with Bobby? His words, which I'd repeated so guilelessly to the Muirs, cut closer to the bone than he possibly could know. Certainly they'd had a profound impact on Marjorie, who'd looked as if she, too, was struggling to piece everything together. At this writing, I still find it impossible to remember all of the events leading to Bobby's death.

"In other words, you thought I was sexually repressed – Daniel, don't you dare dematerialize if you ever want to sleep with me again – because I chose not to swoon at your feet the moment you appeared?" I joked lightly, suddenly afraid of where this conversation might lead.

"Chose, Madame, is the operative word. You wanted to swoon and, for a moment, I thought you quite literally might. Faint, I mean!" Here we stopped, and I turned to face him, digging my heels firmly into the cold, wet sand. On his face was a look of deep sincerity and tenderness. Gentleness. "Nay, Madame. You are and always have been a lady. Ladies do not swoon overtly at the feet of ghostly sea captains no matter how dashing they might appear. But neither do they flee to remote enclaves perched on desolate cliffs overlooking hundreds of miles of cold, gray, ocean. My dear, you were repressed only in the sense you thought you'd left the one thing that had hurt you the most – your heart – safely behind you in Philadelphia. Buried along with the husband who'd thrown it away."

Here, he took my hand – he is so straight out of a Harlequin romance novel – and placed it over his own heart. "My dear, we are always going to belong to a 'trope.' To a 'genre,' as I believe they now refer to categories of literature and movies and, alas, the sad comedies and soap operas our little family watches." Here, my lips twitched. Martha and the Captain still think they are the only ones who know they surreptitiously smoke and opine obsessively over Guiding Light each morning. "I am a spirit, you are a mortal woman. We love across a great expanse of time and circumstance. I can only materialize solidly to the few whose energies love me and make it so. We can never walk openly around Schooner Bay as man and wife nor can we ever have our own children. I belong only to your heart and exist truly only in your presence and your family's. I care not for anything that does not directly affect your welfare, and I will never be a man of this century. I am here for you alone now. Most requitedly."

The sun was in my eyes as I gazed (yes, I admit it) adoringly at his face. A thought occurred to me. "Does this mean that when I die…?" Here, I reached up and wiped a tear from his face, quite a role reversal. My voice cracked. "Because it won't be heaven if you aren't there."

He grabbed my hand and pulled me away from the water, towards the boulders lining the cliff face and into their protective nooks and crannies where only the crabs scuttled in the shadows. "Heaven is right here, right now," he whispered, and kissed me lightly on the lips as his hands worked the front of my car coat. Before I knew it, he was fondling both my breasts under my sweater. I moaned into his mouth, as he pushed my skirt upwards. "You're so spiritual, Captain."

He ignored me. "Conveniently, my dear, I have arranged for a blanket to spirit itself away from Gull Cottage and directly into our little cove,"

"Captain! I'm dressed for the day. We can't lark about the beach like teenagers. Even if the Muirs are spending the morning in Keystone." Naturally he ignored me. "Fear not, my darling. I will keep you warm and, when finished, will use every vestige of my supernatural powers to restore your hair to its original condition." Afterward, we lay, arms entwined, listening to the surf as my heartbeat slowly returned to normal. "Daniel, it is your strength, not mine, which gives me the courage to fight back at the Muirs and even my parents. It would be so easy just to give into them and the siren call of their money if I didn't have you here." He stroked my hair, gently, in reply. It occurred to me that I'm the one beginning to sound like the heroine in a Harlequin romance novel, a trope unto its own.

"My dear, sometimes there are no answers. No cut-and-dried categories. Just love. Just us."

I smiled. "Two hidebound, middle-aged lovers making the most of the era of 'Free Love' and boundless happiness."

"Quite possibly you might have to rephrase that in several years, when Candace starts dating, my dear."

"Captain," I sighed. "That will be the time and place for your soliloquies on 19th-century mores. As for now, the sand grows cold and I would much prefer that you spirit me away to the comfort of our cabin so I can scrape the sand out of my shoes."

The rest of the day passed pleasantly. Equilibrium seemed restored between "us" and "the Muirs." They were grandparents and I rejoined permanently the ranks of that other favorite TV trope, the newly independent, nascent career woman who supports her family on her own...with the help of an even more beautiful trope: The woman who found her soulmate.


	28. Chapter 28

Oct. 25

Candy and Jonathan have a new obsession, courtesy of their friend David. It's a TV show called Dark Shadows, and it prominently features ghosts, werewolves, zombies, monsters, witches, time travel and other such "preposterous" things as parallel universes, Ralph informs me. Barnabas the vampire is their favorite character. Unfortunately, the show airs every day at 3:30 p.m., which happens to be the moment the kids hop off the bus and hurl themselves at the front door, afraid to miss even a single moment of Barnabas' fangs. I suggested to Candy this morning there might be better shows for her to watch – and, mouth agape, she stared at me, looked at the Captain and started laughing. That got me thinking. The dark, interior shots of Collinswood Manor are suspiciously similar to Gull Cottage, when the curtains are closed. "And Captain Gregg sits real close to you, Mommy, when he talks about important stuff on the couch," Jonathan suggested. "Just like Ms. Stoddard and Mr. Collins do. Only nobody wants to kill me."

Nonetheless, he watches the show with the Captain close at hand, both of them leaning forward, elbows on their knees and faces in their hands. I think Candy's trying to decide whether she's really brave enough to declare a crush on Jonathan Frid. Her Philadelphia girl cousins sent her some clippings from a fan magazine. I found them under her bed just the other night, while looking for dirty socks. Right next to the garlic!

Ralph and Marjorie have agreed to stay through Halloween. My suggestion, of course. After all of the recent upheaval, it somehow seemed advisable to laugh the whole ghost issue off and invite them to see for themselves there is nothing to fear about either my sanity or purported hauntings. I plan to send Ralph out with the kids. And if no trick-or-treaters show up here, I can always blame Gull Cottage's remote location or the weather. If the high school crowd shows up with toilet paper, well, that will be a different story and I'm going to have to lay down rules for Daniel. Regardless, I have my own little tricks and treats lined up. As a special surprise for Captain Gregg, I've borrowed an 1860's ball gown from an historian I interviewed in Harpswell for an article for the Bangor paper. Strangely, she didn't ask for any explanations, though she did add: "This will make a lovely outfit for the lady of the house." She didn't say costume and she didn't mention Halloween. Those words did not come out of her mouth. I wonder if she has her own ghosts to contend with? I prefer to imagine she does, rather than infer everyone on this portion of the mid-coast has an opinion about Gull Cottage. I've also bought 20 vanilla candles to light the parlor and downstairs hallway.

"Sooner or later you're going to have to conjure up a flesh-and-blood romance," Martha huffed after hearing of my go-round with the Muirs. "Nobody with your looks and personality intentionally locks themselves up in a mausoleum like this." Mausoleum! I believe it was Freud who said there's no such thing as 'accidental' speech. Captain Gregg was amused. "Ship, Martha, ship." As for me, I really don't care. There's something rather sweet about having your own private sea captain to sleep with. The rest of the world can think what it wants. Only it appears I will not be taking the time-honored approach – remarriage – to moving my little family back up the economic ladder. I don't think anything of social standing, having had a little too much of it growing up. But, I do worry constantly about money. Facing facts: Freelance writing does not pay well, although it's a respectable activity for a woman who wants a career. It's non-threatening to men and actually capitalizes on all of the 'ladylike' qualities men wish women could retain in this tumultuous time of bra-burning and women's lib. The money's just not there, and Jonathan and Candy are getting older and will need more as they grow older. Of course their grandparents will kick in, financially, buying them vacations and gifts I cannot afford. Ultimately, the kids will inherit the Muir's estate and I will come into a sizable bank account or stock portfolio from the Williams'. Still, I don't want to sit around and wait for those boats to arrive in port.

Daniel worries about money for me because he knows how important independence remains for me. Gull Cottage and Maine and privacy are my lines in the sand, and I don't want any handouts or excuses that would allow the Muirs to gain any footholds here. My life is so wonderfully simple now. Interview people, write stories, mail them to editors, shop occasionally and curl up in front of the fire at night with the most annoying, arrogant, wonderful man I have ever known. There is not enough money in the world to make me trade these quiet moments, when I sit on the couch and toy with the curls resting on the nape of his neck. Here, I am loved and cared for. If I put my pen down now, I most assuredly will be plucked from this chair by the strong arms of my ghostly lover for our nightly voyage of discovery. When I fall asleep, he will stand the nightwatch above or in the alcove below before returning here, to our cabin just before dawn, smelling like freshly brewed coffee and the sea breeze. That's when I know for sure I am home, my heart safely anchored in Gull Cottage to an unearthly love that puts Barnabas to shame!


	29. Chapter 29

Oct. 28

I spent the larger portion of the day trying to reach Maine's two gubernatorial candidates about the Nov. 2 election. My friends at the Inquirer decided to use me, instead of their usual political pundit, so they could spin a "fresh face" on the same-old same-old state politics. Suspiciously, we're in Maine's "off-season" and no reporter wants to leave the balmy climes of Center City for frigid Maine. Also, my hometown newspaper wants a "woman's perspective," whatever that is supposed to mean at the end of this very chaotic decade. I guess I'm finding out, anyway, that the ultimate equal right is pursuing the career of your choice without a man's interference -- as long as it pays your bills. Which I may not be able to do, as I will have to dictate the story over the phone, to the copy desk, in order for it to make the Sunday edition. The phone bill no doubt will arrive before the Inquirer's check.

Mrs. Post phoned early this afternoon, very excited. It seems someone in Schooner Bay with money and a big house (don't even know the name of said-individual or his house, they always have a name here, houses I mean) and a burgeoning political career found out I'm writing for the Inquirer and decided, last-minute, to invite us to a Halloween Ball tomorrow, Saturday. Halloween's on Monday. I will have to spring my authentic crinolines on Captain Gregg earlier than expected. I did put in a call to the city editor to make sure there were no conflicts of interest. He knew exactly who Mrs. Post was talking about, and added if I was able to cultivate a sources like state senator John Barnes, I'd be a real asset to the newsroom.

I told the Muirs about the party but haven't had a chance to deal directly with Captain Gregg. He deserves every consideration as my paramour, but it is often hard to explain to him why I cannot simply consult with him directly -- first -- in such situations. I hope he will be so stunned by my 1860s ball-gown fashion he'll forget everything else . . . sigh. No doubt the Captain will have stronger opinions/feelings about the host of the party, who dances with me, and the opinions expressed by the coastal elite. After all, just about everyone I meet here (including the Gregg family) has lived in Maine since colonial days. Martha, who was born just down the coast in Portland, assures me the topics of conversation or attitudes have changed little since 1750.

The Muirs grow weary and uninterested in the children. Ralph's back to making "business calls" to his brokerage firm and Marjorie is spending more and more time with the Grover's friends. I pray they do not become too attached. Surely not.

Daniel is giving me not-so-subtle come-hither looks from the sofa. He's all for this journal provided it doesn't interfere with our intimate moments in the evening. Journal, he doesn't understand it is the thought of lying in his arms on the sofa, in front of a glowing fire, talking about life-in-general while enjoying butterfly kisses on my hair and neck that make every day at Gull Cottage worth chronicling.


	30. Chapter 30

Oct. 29

Oh, where to begin? Were this a news story, the lede would read:

Schooner Bay, ME (Saturday, Oct. 30) – Residents of this tiny coastal community say they're unsure whether they actually saw a ghost or ate too many "special brownies" sneaked into a Halloween party last night at a prominent residence owned by State Senator John Barnes.

But this isn't a news story, and it's certainly not going to become one. I do live here, after all, and so does Mark Finley. And since I was one of the many at the party who unknowingly ate marijuana-laced brownies in hopes of soaking up a few too many martinis…I'm afraid I am not a reliable source for anything that happened after, say, 9:30 p.m. The police, aka Ed Peavey and Claymore Gregg, are diligently interviewing John Barnes' teenaged sons and several of their closest friends to ascertain the identity of the teen pranksters and the source of their cannabis but, I'll bet gold doubloons, that's one police report that never makes the files. John Barnes is, well, off-limits. He did, after all, find state funds for several local building projects…and quid pro quo counts for a lot in relatively taciturn Maine.

How on earth did the kids pull this off?! Why could none of the partygoers (average age 45) taste the marijuana or detect its seeds? Capt. Gregg, of all unlikely sources, says in his day, cannabis was frequently used as a drug to cure sea-sickness and other ailments. Because smoking was not allowed amongst the general crew, the ship's chef would make some sort of special "weed" butter THEN use the doctored butter to make sweet cakes. This remedy tasted better and was for passengers only, or so he says.

Now that I'm sober (is that the word?) I am mortified. I thought the phone would ring off the hook today, given Daniel's opportunism last night. Strangely, no one has called to even hesitantly explore what everyone surmises probably happened. Martha says Peavey says no rich partygoer is going to cop to drug use, even if it was inadvertent. Peavey, who's still afraid to even set foot in Gull Cottage, isn't about to lend credence to rumors that Carolyn Muir brazenly waltzed with a ghost in front of the mid-coast's finest.

However, I quite expect plenty of odd looks on Monday, at the kids' Halloween parties. That crazy Carolyn Muir, the writer-woman who dances with ghosts…and gets away with it. Martha says they'll probably look at me with newfound jealousy! Oh, this really isn't funny.

Most fortunately, Marjorie and Ralph are far too mortified/horrified to even mention last night's events or acknowledge we all – Captain Gregg included -- drove home, stoned (as the hippies say), laughing gaily about everything before descending upon the kitchen with a vehemence Martha immediately smelled and recognized. The Captain must have whispered in her ear, for she virtually served us a four-course breakfast and plenty of strong coffee laced with Bailey's. Marjorie fell asleep at the table, leaving Ralph and Martha to haul her off to the guestroom, from which the senior Muirs emerged only hours ago.

Martha helped deposit Marjorie, came back, grabbed her cigarettes, and stepped outside the kitchen door with the Captain, from whence loud guffaws commenced. Martha returned, wiping tears from her eyes. Daniel looked studiously innocent. I really can't remember all of it, I just smiled, grabbed the Captain around the waist and mumbled something about how handsome his beard looked. "Take your wanton wench to bed!" Martha smiled, that I do remember, before Captain Gregg picked me up, ball gown and all, and carried me upstairs. I can objectively report he has a particular sexual fetish about 100-year-old fashions that I certainly won't immortalize here, except to note that it is possible to engage in some forms of highly romantic behavior while loosely corseted AND while another is capitalizing on the other's mental condition. It was all very romantic up until the point my pot-addled brain realized my body was doing something it had never done before, and passion turned quickly into unbridled lovemaking so intense I close my eyes at the very recollection of it all.

The foreplay began much earlier in the evening, actually. I had just concluded an off-the-record conversation with several state senators and the mayor of Portland. They sketched out the next legislative session, even though they seemed at first somewhat reluctant to discuss politics with a woman. It was a "backgrounder" only conversation we all agreed, I knowing and understanding anything I heard and repeated could easily be attributed to the Inquirer's state editor. "Just bat your eyes, Carolyn," he said over the phone. Sexist pig!

All would have been and ended well were it not for an invitation to dance by a Rockport councilman. By this time, buffet dinner had just wrapped up and the band was playing sentimental favorites of the 50s and 60s. We're not talking rock 'n roll here. Smooth music, dancing music, which seemed so much more romantic after we'd all partaken of brownies. I was swept up, self-consciously, into the arms of a suave councilman who much admired my authentic gown and décolletage. By this time we all were stoned. I'd never used illicit drugs before. Which is why, I suppose, I failed to recognize the warning signs as I began to find the councilman's conversation so effervescent and fascinating, so politically important that I somehow missed his pulling me closer, his hand leaving my lower back to cop whatever type of a feel one thinks one can manage through layers of 19th-century crinolines and brocade. I ineffectively tried to fend him off while heartily avoiding any semblance of a scene that seemed to be happening to someone else.

Suddenly, an invisible force seemed to pull us to the side of the dance floor, behind the few who were talking instead of dancing, where much to my surprise a white-gloved hand pushed the councilman cad back, against the wall. "That is no way to treat the belle of the ball, young man," I heard a most loved and dreamy voice commandingly state. I looked up, and there he was, in full naval regalia (or should I say costume, for this was, after all, a costume party). "My dear," he whispered in my ear. "This is too good an opportunity to waste." He was so, so very virile at that moment, my Captain. His Roman nose, his blue, blue eyes, and what I alone knew of his nether regions. Broad shoulders, tapered waist, long, elegant legs. He placed his hand on my waist and subtly steered me onto the dance floor where I, entranced and completely out of my mind, proceeded to waltz like I'd never danced before, smiling provocatively into his eyes, feeling his warm breath, my every sense and sensation amplified a thousand times over. Suddenly, it was just the two of us on the dance floor – literally. "This is more than I could ever have wished," he murmured and smiled beatifically at my drugged face. I could only smile, enchanted and too far-gone to care about appearances or what such a very real manifestation might mean to those assembled yet equally stoned. Their faces were a blur, their presence insignificant until the very last measure of the waltz, when the music stopped and I completely understood it was just myself and Daniel standing at the core of a circle of some 75 of Maine's best-and-brightest.

Then he bowed, and disappeared. Just like that. The band director dropped his baton. In my stupor, it the wood echoed resoundingly on the floor.

"I'm sorry, why are you staring at me?" It was all I could think to say. "I seem to have lost my dance partner. Councilman --?" I reached out and my would-be Casanova materialized (no, really) from nowhere, the Rockport councilman. What any of us were thinking then was beyond me. I could hear the twittering before my partner began, "Now where were we before that poltergeist interrupted?" and the startled conductor began playing Lawrence Welk's latest Halloween polka. Off we went, me oddly wondering how the Captain was so famous even someone from Rockport recognized him. The next thing I remember is being ushered to the car by Ralph Muir and, Captain Gregg!!!!

Ralph and the Captain acted as if they knew one another, slapping each other convivially on the back and talking about investment-grade stocks or some such nonsense. "No, I have no earthly idea who that was," I overheard Captain Gregg say to Ralph. "I'm just glad John's invitation reached me before we ship out on the USS Grover."

By this point, I seemed to be losing seconds of time and only remember bits and pieces of what followed, except for our gargantuan appetites and the surprised look on Martha's face when she saw Daniel escorting me to the table.

He must have pulled her aside and whispered into her ear, for she promptly commenced to produce a four-course breakfast, complete with Bailey's-laced coffee. "Hair of the dog, Mr. Muir." Marjorie fell asleep at the table and Martha had to help Ralph cart her off to the guest room. When she returned, Martha grabbed the Captain's arm and pulled him out the kitchen door, where they smoked and guffawed as he caught her up on the evening's happenings. Well, he guffawed, Martha cackled. Martha wiped her eyes as she came back in. "Better take that wench – I mean Mrs. Muir – upstairs before she falls asleep, too, Captain" I think I heard her say. Needing no urging, I'm fairly certain Daniel picked me up and carried me upstairs where, I seem to recall, I discovered he has certain sexual fetishes about 19th-century ballgowns. It is possible, I'm pleased to report, to engage in raunchy, unladylike but very, very erotically stimulating, sexual behavior which I modestly decline to immortalize here. Of course, corsets must be half-unlaced and yes! Despite what he says, I did begin the evening with bloomers. No wonder women of the last century swooned so readily.

Did I just repeat myself? "My dear, that is hardly coincidence," Captain Gregg advised, reading studiously over my shoulder. "I certainly wouldn't delete TWO accounts of my sexual prowess."

"Go away!"

My face burns, now, as I write. Of all the things I didn't need, of all the things I will NEVER regret. Yes, I may be prudish, overly modest but this ghost is making a proper flesh-and-blood woman out of me. For the children's sake, I hope this doesn't fuel any rumors about hauntings at Gull Cottage. On the other hand, most of their friends' parents weren't invited. Just the elite, and one newspaper reporter with her fashionably chic and rich in-laws. Surely the rumor mill can't become any more heated than it already can be/is?

I suppose if anyone asks I will jocularly suggest, "the veil between worlds grows thin as Halloween approaches…" No, I'm too much of a prude. I suppose I will smile, shrug my shoulders and ask, "are you serious?" if anyone dares discuss the matter with me. Sigh. What a dream-come-true. Daniel wanted to know, early this morning, whether I have any regrets we cannot live openly as man-and-wife. I think I was still stoned. I rolled over on top of him, pinned his arms above his head, and cooed, "How romantic! Is that an official marriage proposal?" I kissed him full on the lips and could feel his corresponding arousal as he nipped at my breasts. We were so warm and it felt so natural to lie with him beneath the winter-weight comforter. "Madame," he murmured between kisses down the side of my neck. "You are my soul mate, and that is something most husbands and wives never experience. Besides," and here he flipped me back onto the mattress so he could intensify his ministrations, "my dear, I think we're way beyond the 'til death to us part part!" I would have smacked him if I hadn't been to occupied to even care.

I'll worry what anyone thinks about my otherworldly romance on Monday. Trick-or-treat! I had both this Halloween.


	31. Chapter 31

Oct. 31, 1968

Halloween, at last! How does one celebrate such a day when one lives with a ghost? Does knowledge of the ordinariness of afterlife dim children's fear of haunted houses or scary revelers? Not at all. Jonathan and Candy left the house early this evening, grandfather and Ed Peavey in tow, dressed as a sailor and a hippie, respectively (the kids, I mean!), quivering with equal measures of fear and anticipation. One of the kids in Candy's class claims all of the sunken ships in Schooner Bay rise to the surface each Halloween Night, and the spirits of their dead sailors beckon village children to join them in watery graves. Jonathan is all for it, and Captain Gregg went so far as to suggest to Candy that she wave at a few of the less-fortunate lobstermen in his so-called 'spectral fraternity.' Candy rolled her eyes but Jonathan wanted to know which spirits were the good ones and which ghosts the bad. I think my daughter is more interested in ye olde tale about the 15-year-old pregnant girl who jumped off the balcony at the Schooner Bay movie theatre back in '49. Or some such nonsense. Pirates for Jonathan, romantic idiots for Candy.

Speaking of nonsense and spiritual hijinks, my other child rubbed his hands gleefully as the sun set around 5 p.m. and informed me he was headed to the widow's walk, from whence he planned to glow green while pealing sinister laughter at all trick-or-treaters brave (or should I say brazen?) enough to drive up Cliff Road. "After all, m'dear, I would hate to disappoint after my debut waltz on Saturday," Captain Gregg purred into my ear, standing behind me while I helped Marjorie fill bags with candy. "Over my dead body!" I murmured reflexively with a little too much angry intonation. My mother-in-law stared at me. For the 1,000th time since my arrival in this little town, I was forced to shrug my shoulders merrily, roll my eyes, laugh gaily and exclaim, "Oh, I was just thinking of a joke I overheard Jonathan tell Martha."

"Really, Madame," came the inevitable retort from Captain Gregg. "How clichéd. Your dead body?!" I smiled just a little too brightly at Marjorie. "Speaking of jokes, I forgot to call Candy's class room mother – " and charged out of the parlor and up the stairs to the sanctuary of my own room. "Captain Gregg! You materialize right here at once! Now!" I'm sure he was petrified. I stood, hands on hips as he took his sweet time appearing before me. "Madame, I heeeeaaaaaarrr you," he quipped eerily as if from an echo chamber – just as he did during Madame Tibaldi's visit. "Captain Gregg! Daniel! Half the town thinks you're a little more than a THC-induced hallucination. There is nothing funny about this situation, about my reputation, and with my in-laws here –"

"Madame," he replied a little too suavely, "There is absolutely nothing funny about your dead body. In fact, my dear, it is most inappropriate for you, in our situation –" "Be still!" I hissed. "I don't think you realize how serious our situation actually is. People here really believe in ghosts. They won't admit it, of course. Thank heaven they won't admit to being inadvertently high, either. But they think they know what they saw. And now they think they're sure Gull Cottage really is haunted, and Ralph and Marjorie have even more reason to think I'm crazy, and life just got a little harder for Jonathan and Candy and me! I'll be the Jezebel of Schooner Bay. A single woman, a widow, a mother, sleeping with a ghost! A loose woman with no morals. Don't even get me started on what more of your nonsense could do to our privacy up here."

Here Daniel took several steps back, and surveyed my less-than-serene countenance benignly from his 6'2 vantage. "Don't try to change the topic!" I spat. "My dear," he crooned magnanimously, "do you realize it's been 100 years since I've seen a woman's breasts heave so delightfully above a corseted waist?" For a moment, I wondered whether he really was dense enough to be serious about this. I realized he was/is. Fuming, I grabbed my long petticoats and skirt, heaved my chest one more time at him, and stomped back down the stairs as his macabre laughter pealed gaily after me. Yes, yes, I know, I thought. They can neither see nor hear you but you're going to get a big earful from me later about priorities. In the hallway, Marjorie stood, ear pressed to the candlestick phone's receiver. "Yes, oh hello, yes, this is the Muir residence. Candy's class mom? Didn't she just phone you? Oh, I see. Well, here she is!"

It was Cindy Owen, one of the actually nice mothers. One I might sip coffee with after carpool. "Carolyn? I'm really, really sorry to have to bother you with something so silly, but I thought you should know some of the high school kids overheard their parents talking about whatever happened on Saturday night and they're planning on loading up several cars – safety in numbers, I guess – and driving up to Gull Cottage to see if they can taunt the ghost of Daniel Gregg into making an appearance." I sank into the chair. "Carolyn? Carolyn? Really, honey, it's going to be ok. You know I don't care about – oh, never mind. I just wanted to give you a heads up, you know, so that no one would be surprised either way." I thanked her as gracefully as I could, trying to sound like the calm, under-control, Mikimoto pearl-wearer they all thought I was. Not the idiot Marjorie Muir presupposes I can be. "Oh, Marjorie," I sighed. "Cindy Owen says the high school kids are a little rowdy this year. But they probably won't bother us up here." Marjorie pursed her lips grimly. The Muirs leave tomorrow, so I was pretty sure she wanted to keep things on an even keel. Still, she seemed more than a little self-righteous as she tied orange-and-black ribbons around the top of each little bag of sweets.

I strode into the kitchen, where Martha was stirring mulled cider. The smell was heavenly. She ladled me a cup. "Pretend it's coffee," she sniffed. "What has that ghost done now?" I filled her in as surreptitiously as one can, standing over a steaming pot of liquid that's everything Halloween is not…warm, inviting, suggestive of happy home and hearth…while worrying your worst nightmare in the parlor might overhear you and your other worst nightmare is invisibly eavesdropping. Martha started snickering, and I saw her wipe a tear of laughter from the corner of her eye while pretending it was just steam from the stockpot. "Mrs. Muir, dear, he is so very deliciously a man. A man's man. Not –" and here she stopped, because we both knew to whom she referred. "Sit down, Carolyn." She took my hand and squeezed it. "He's been haunting up here for over 100 years, running off anyone he dislikes and, well, to his way of thinking, bending over backwards for those he does. Why don't you let Captain Gregg handle this in his own way? He's got as much to protect here as you do." Wordlessly, she reached under the table and pulled a vodka bottle from its base. "Just a little something to tide you over…" as she poured a jigger of the liquor into my cup. "Captain Gregg said he took it off a semi-submerged Russian frigate in the Mediterranean one cold winter day…" I wasn't even listening. I was thinking maybe Martha had a point. Not that I expected Daniel to necessarily do right. Just that whatever he did would probably affect the course of our relationship more than any other single action he's taken since he magically turned our car around when we, I, tried to leave that first night.

"Steer us safely into port," I thought, staring pensively at the same Blue Willow saucer that had fascinated me so endlessly the night I was stoned. Daniel'd been deadly serious when he pushed the drugged councilman off me Saturday night. Extremely firm in the way he delicately yet exactingly led me around the dance floor, protecting my honor while putting Schooner Bay's finest druggies on notice that I am not a woman to be trifled with. Yes, he'd known exactly what he was doing.

With a sigh, Marjorie entered the kitchen, helped herself to the hot cider, and seated herself across the table from me "It's a little odd, Carolyn. You leaving Philadelphia without so much as even one farewell party, telling everyone you wanted to raise your children without interference from me or Ralph. Don't deny it. I know you did. So you sell everything you own – too haughty and high-and-mighty to ask me or your lovely mother for a loan – and drive up here, to what? An ostensibly haunted house. What, my dear, is the takeaway from that? You're too afraid to stay with loving family but unafraid of living in the area's most notoriously haunted house?" I'm not sure what I would have said if the Vodka bottle hadn't suddenly levitated itself as Marjorie leant over to dig a cigarette from her handbag. While she excavated her purse, the Captain poured not one, two, or even three jiggers, but four jiggers of the potent Russian brew right into her cider. Thoughtfully, he materialized and stirred it with his pinky before disappearing once again. Oblivious, Marjorie sat back up, lit her cigarette, inhaled several times and took a large swig of cider. "Martha, I'm sorry we had to have this conversation in front of you. It's not my policy to drag domestics into our affairs. But you are the one person I know that can talk any sense into this young woman."

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Muir, but if I were young Mrs. Muir I'd prefer the Captain to you and Philadelphia any day," Martha retorted roughly. "And you be sure and repeat that verbatim to Mrs. Williams!" I waited, but there was no thunder. Nothing. Silence. I smiled and shrugged my shoulders. This time, it was the absolutely right thing to do. The gesture felt neither fake nor forced. Marjorie and I sat silently, staring first at each other then at the ancient hardwoods on the floor. Outside, the wind picked up from the north, and branches began rattling against the kitchen window. It was cold, cold, cold. I could see the outside thermometer drop almost visibly to 25F. The night was clear. I could see stars from where I sat at the table. "It was a cold, clear, moonless night…" Fifteen minutes passed. No trick-or-treaters. "I think I'll start a fire," I offered, swishing up and out to the parlor. Foolish me! I thought the Captain might overhear and do the damn deed for me. Lighting a fire in a long skirt was going to be dicey, if not a little dangerous. I'd never thought how to properly bend in a corset or keep all that fabric away from the flames. "Allow me, Mrs. Muir," Martha announced loudly from behind. "The domestic will take care of it." Almost as quickly as the Captain might have, Martha turned a burning piece of paper into a warm blaze. "Sit down, dear," she whispered, "and wait for all that Vodka to put her majesty to sleep."

It put both of us to sleep, actually. I dreamt deeply, as one does when one's really trying to stay awake, images of Captain Gregg dancing literally through my mind. An hour passed, then two. I must have fallen soundly asleep there in the parlor, for the next thing I knew it was 8:30, and the doorbell had not rung once. At 8:45, Jonathan, Candy and Ralph bounded through the door as Ed Peavey's car turned around and hightailed it to Schooner Bay. Odd, that he didn't come in for at least a minute to talk to Martha.

"Mom, mom, we got some great stuff," Jonathan yelled, chocolate-colored drool hanging out of his mouth. "All the fifth-grade girls got paperback Nancy Drew novels from Mrs. Cunningham," Candy announced loudly, causing Marjorie to stir slightly in her chair. "And it was the weirdest thing," Ralph somehow raised his voice above the litany of confectionary items and haunting experiences. "The night was cold, crisp and very clear. We had no problem covering all of Schooner Bay, right until we got to the bottom of Cliff Road. It was incredible. There, out of nowhere, was the densest fog I've ever seen. Ed turned on the fog lights it was so bad. He was sure gripping that steering wheel like he might run into something spooky any minute. I didn't know you had weather like that up here, Carolyn? I hope you don't drive my grandkids around in that kind of soup very often."

I was so relieved. No wonder Ed Peavey'd been in such a hurry to get home. "Ralph," I interjected kindly. "I think Marjorie's had too much to drink. We didn't have any trick or treaters up here. Guess the fog got to them, too. Can you help me get Marjorie to bed?"

"Grandma's drunk!" I heard Candy whisper to herself, capping her mouth with glee and while elbowing Jonathan in the side. Ralph and I pulled Marjorie out of the chair, and as he wrapped his elbow around the old shrew, I leaned forward and said lowly, "But I won't tell anyone Marjorie drinks her dinner if you won't divulge I dance with ghosts." I winked. Ralph scowled and disappeared up the stairs. Martha knew my tolerance was running on empty. She herded the kids right behind them. I stretched. Everything takes twice as long in a 100-year-old ballgown. Still, it would probably be another 100 years before I put one on again, so I fluffed my skirts and reseated myself gingerly on the old sofa, pulling the front of the dress down as low as I dared.

"Oh Captain," I heaved. It worked. I definitely had major cleavage going on. "Nonsense, Mrs. Muir." Of course. He was behind me, at the bay window. This necessitated a lot of maneuvering on my part. I stood, sorry to see my cleavage disappear, flounced my skirts around, and walked to where he stood. "I mean our situation. Just nonsense." He placed his arms resolutely behind his back and began raising and lowering himself on the balls of his feet. "Yes," I thought once more. He really is this dense. He is a man. And I have offended his sense of honor not to mention his pride in my integrity. "You know, Captain," I began shyly, almost ashamed of myself. "About our situation. That fog that seems to have rolled in out of absolutely nowhere – do you suppose it might lift, say, in the next five minutes or so? I would love a moonlit waltz on the widow's walk, where, say, anyone with a telescope in Schooner Bay could enjoy the sight of Maine's most magnificent ghost dancing with," and I sighed, "the woman who doesn't deserve him?"

He took my hand, and instead of kissing the back of it, held my palm and gently nuzzled my wrist instead. I did my best to walk daintily up the stairs beside him, a 19th-century consort in the truest sense of the word. As we emerged on the walkway, the fog dispersed quite literally into thin air. Daniel's pea coat shifted and suddenly he stood before me in true admiralty fashion, gold epaulettes and brass buttons gleaming in the starlight. There was music, a waltz. And us. "Close your eyes," he ordered. I did, expecting to be kissed. Instead, when I opened them, I could see our feet had left the widow's walk. We – quite literally – were dancing in thin air! Over the front yard, actually. Reflexively I pulled the Captain…grabbed him!...towards me and hung on for dear life. "Your breast is heaving quite magnificently now, and you didn't even have to pull the top down," he smiled, as though he had just solved a pressing issue. I smiled back, and forgot everything else. Prying eyes, the night's drama, what Schooner Bay thought and what my in-laws only think they know. It didn't seem the least bit strange to be dancing in the air with a corporeal ghost who made every other living man seem ethereal. I didn't notice when the music stopped; I leaned into Captain Gregg and ran my hands up and down his broad back, at first absently then with slow deliberation as I felt him grow against my stomach, corset notwithstanding. "Dear lady," said the only man I know who can make that phrase sound as contemporary as "groovy," "We must go in before you grow cold. But first, I must show you something." I blinked, and we were back on the widow's walk, looking out at the darkened sea. Barely, but barely, I could make out the silhouettes of at least 20 sailing vessels, sails billowing without breeze, lanterns hanging from their sides. "You can see them because they wish it, Carolyn." We stood side-by-side, his arm around my waist. "Don't cry, my darling. It's been a very long day. Shall we?" He beckoned toward the stairs and I gathered my skirts about me to descend. Instead, we materialized straight into our bedroom.

"If I can dance with you on air and spirit you magically through solid wood, imagine what I can do for you in our bed, darling."

"There's just one problem, my love. The last time you removed all items of my clothing, I was, shall we say, confused by the cannabis and puzzled at first by your seeming predilection for a certain piece of whalebone. Perhaps you could just, make this dress come off by itself? Otherwise, you will have to pleasure yourself, as your contemporaries so amusingly put it, because I don't know how to get out of this damned thing by myself!"

"Trick, or treat Mrs. Muir?" he murmured suavely. "Surprise me," I challenged, wondering what else a man who'd had a woman in every port could do to a modern woman with no nuanced understanding of his period's dress.

I was pleasantly tricked and most wondrously treated and when at last we were through, and lay, bodies intertwined, on his lovely antique bed, breathing heavily, I thought of all the Halloweens my Captain must have endured alone, staring at the ghost ships of the Atlantic from the very place we'd almost made love. That was the last profound thought I can remember, anyway, before I grabbed my "log" and wrote this for posterity, the Captain distracting me with his hand beneath the cover.

We celebrate the day of the dead, but for the wrong reasons. Had Daniel not died right here, in this very place of our greatest joy, he too might have become one of the lost waving at me from a ghost ship on the high seas. Instead, he became one of the lost waving from the highest mast on his landlocked ship, beckoning to those he must have felt most fortunate there at sea, with shipmates for spectral companions. Until you arrived, he writes here after grabbing my pen from me. Perhaps we should remember that Oct. 31 is a day to remember and honor loss instead of seeking cheap thrills and candy.


	32. Chapter 32

I am a real person in a made-up world.

At least, that's how I thought of myself after a phone call this morning from an editor at Redbook. Somehow, word of Schooner Bay's Halloween hijinks made it back to the Society & Lifestyle desk at the Philadelphia Inquirer. After a few raised – no, arched – eyebrows and condescending remarks, the editors-who-lunch decided to let a national magazine have fun with me.

The bitchy Philly editors can't, after all, toy in ink with a former employee. They can't, either, run a piece about a wacky widow who doesn't live in the Philadelphia area. No local angle to that delightful dish.

But, a prestigious woman's magazine looking for a modern-day variation on "A Christmas Carol?" Stop the presses. Somebody knows somebody who thinks they know someone who lives with a ghost – and she's a former Philly debutante. Gasp! How perfect for a play on words, this Christmas. Get it? A modern-day ghost of Christmas very present.

This is a great leap, because anyone who's not a magazine writer or newspaper reporter would have a hard time connecting the dots between an ostensibly long-dead sea captain and a Dickensian ghost. The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. The Desperate Editor and Mrs. Muir. A harried woman grasping at all straws to fill space vacated last-minute by a disgruntled advertiser who waited until early November to state his disapproval of an October article about "Modern Women in the Workplace."

Mrs. Muir. A society widow desperately keeping genteel poverty at bay by accepting any writing assignments from editors around the country.

"Dear," began the voice with a condescending drip and a Brahmin surety, "I'm told you live a most unconventional life on the coast of Maine." Maine. "Maine" as in cold, isolated, haunted, and only habitable in expensive summer houses within 1,000 feet of the beach. That Maine. The one she was referring to.

"This is Miss Pettigrew, by the way. There's a silly rumor buzzing around Philadelphia and New York that you're a writer with a most interesting relationship with a ghost – real or, I'm certain, imagined. I'm willing to pay you $500 for 1,500 words about what it's really like to live with a ghost on Christmas. He must be a kindly ghost, a wholesome spirit who embodies Christian virtues and family values. Everything we hold dear at this time of year. Don't you think that would be lovely? That's your angle, Mrs. Muir. A ghost of Christmas present who embodies the Dickensian virtues that some of us, even in this ghastly time, still hold true."

I didn't have time to think. To summons the usual inanities and fake humor I muster whenever outsiders try to finger Captain Gregg.

"No Miss Pettigrew, I really appreciate your generous offer but there really wasn't any ghost at the Halloween dance and there are certainly no spirits anywhere in Schooner Bay. As for me living with a ghost, and I don't believe in ghosts anyway, and if I did, why I –"

"Perhaps $800 could convince you to let the skeleton out of the closet, my dear? And make that 2,000 words. Why, that's virtually highway robbery but I will meet your demands. The check is in the mail. Please follow it promptly with your typed manuscript."

Then silence. No rumbling thunder. No kids running up and down the stairs. No Martha rattling pots and pans in the kitchen. Just me and Scruffy. Scruffy and me. $800 would pay for rent through the end of August. I had to do this. I despise myself for accepting the offer, but it solves many financial problems.

But not one big issue.

I waited until tonight to resolve that one. Until the big issue held me tightly in his embrace and his lips traversed the base of my neck. Such willpower, it took me, to utter these words with my neck arched and my head sinking blissfully into the pillows.

"Captain," I gasped as he parted my legs with his knee. "I don't think I'll be writing about this in my new assignment about a ghost of Christmas present!"

His only response was a heavy moan. I surrendered to his passion, but not before a wicked little voice in the back of my brain whispered, "He can't say you didn't tell him."

Christmas spirit indeed. There is nothing made-up about my world, I thought, as I panted later, recovering from passion in the arms of my favorite presence/present.

"M'dear," he sighed contentedly, as he stroked my hair and continued to nibble at my neck. "You can write anything about me you wish as long as you're writing about things you only do with me!"

I waited for stirrings of guilt. None surfaced. I suppose there are some Christian underpinnings to this relationship. And the Captain worships at the altar of HIS version of family values. Perhaps this assignment is doable, I thought contentedly.

Fortunately, stirrings of passion quickly thrust aside my doubts. Daniel ventured once again, this time his lips on my breast, his hand exploring the peaks and valleys of everything below.

"Haunted," I thought as I pulled his face to mine and sought his lips with mine. There is nothing made up in this realm.


	33. Chapter 33

Nov. 10, 1968

Sometimes the things I write about Captain Gregg and life-in-general make it sound like we're so swept up in the daily hubbub the Muir family hardly sits down.

To the contrary, Carolyn. Write this down so that when you look back, or mine this journal for tidbits for some future novel, you remember with exquisite longing the early, halcyon days of our life in Gull Cottage.

The truth is, we are learning to adjust to life-lived with the cadences of nature instead of the pulse of city traffic. My days also are no longer punctuated with the scathing tongues of my in-laws or even the well-meaning intrusions of my mother. The wonderful invention called "long-distance charges" keeps at bay the disruptive family phone calls that plagued me in Philly.

I suppose in the long run, I might admit to myself that my precipitous move to Maine had more to do with shutting out the din of unpleasantness surrounding me than any need for privacy and solitude as a writer. For goodness' sake, I trained in the Philadelphia Inquirer's newsroom, which is about as quiet as Niagara Falls. I don't need solitude to write. I need solitude to be myself. This may sound odd, considering how little time I was actually on my own before I admitted to myself I could not live without Daniel Gregg. For all his flaws, though, the Captain is very solicitous towards my solitude! When he pontificates and struts like a peacock, it's usually in response to my response, and we end up arguing about everything except the real issue we're arguing about!

The pounding of the tides is like breath itself; the sea is the canvas upon which we paint our daily activity.

And then there's the cold. Some see Maine as the summer state. Sometimes, I think the frigid temperatures shape our daily existence than even Captain Gregg's long-standing mistress, the sea. Even in summer it's too cold to frolic in the waves.

Cold makes the lights of Gull Cottage warmer, the fires more intimate, and the aroma of Martha's cooking even more delicious. Stiff breezes push us inward, together, making shelter so much more important and inviting. How could I not mention my tacit inamorato? At night, the cold sheets bind me over to his tender embrace, which is warm, sexually arousing, and comforting all at the same time. Would we make love as often if it were 90 degrees outside? Shivering at night, I roll towards him and in the intimacy of the dark I find myself glowing with desire, blanketed by love.

If we could not touch, in the conventional sense? Excuse, Carolyn, your own resort to a cliché, but I do believe the glow in his eyes would be enough. Here I stop to wipe a tear, even though I'm emoting as tackily as a Harlequin Romance novelist. Sentenced to life with unconsummated desire? The slow burn of love would be less a prison and more a daily reminder of all I have gained since our move to weather-beaten Maine.

Martha calls us to dinner now. Daniel informs me there will be Cognac and fireside stories after the wee bairns are to-bed.

Daniel, of course, never really sleeps and his presence in Martha's kitchen is mandatory in the wee hours before any of we lower mortals stir. This morning, as I headed down the hall to use the bathroom at the ungodly hour of 4:30 a.m., I overheard Martha chuckle, then "You are as good for her as the fresh air, you pompous old sea dog." Thus I end my circuitous musings where they began, the stiff sea breeze blowing the life back into us all. "Muir means of the sea, Mom," Candy announced breathlessly this morning. "Yeah, Mom, it means the Captain, too," Jonathan added guilelessly.

Naturally.


	34. Chapter 34

Nov. 12, 1968

"Well-intentioned intrusions of my mother." Was I prescient?

Today, she intruded. The Captain and I were working on my piece for Redbook magazine. Actually, I was sitting in his lap, pulling at his upper lip with mine, arms entwined around his neck, when the phone rang on the desk in front of us.

"Ignore it m'dear," he whispered as he fumbled with the "confounding," modern invention of the bra hook.

"If I don't, Martha will answer it and she'll come looking for me if it's anyone other than Mrs. Grover." I sighed. Martha is uncharacteristically accommodating of our out-of-wedlock supernatural affair. But even she would be horrified to learn we frequently lie when we slip upstairs early, as soon as the kids are in bed, recusing ourselves to edit an article – and canoodle instead.

Reluctantly, I removed one of my perfidious arms from around Daniel's delectable neck, and gave him one last, quick kiss. On his neck, just under his ear, tongue in evidence. I reached across the typewriter and reluctantly answered the phone.

"Hello?"

"Carolyn?" Like a silly schoolgirl, I jumped out of Daniel's lap, smoothing my skirt. Reflexively, my hand went straight to my hair. Granted, it was hard to mess with so much hairspray, but my ghost – "shade" as Claymore sometimes whispers – had managed to tousle more than a few strands. "Blast!" Startled, I turned around, eyes wide as saucers. "Shhhh!" I warned. It took me a second to remember Mrs. Williams of Philadelphia couldn't hear him, anyway.

"Dear? I'm sorry, I thought the kids would be in bed, that's why I waited so late to call." Coffee, I mouthed to the Captain, hoping he would take the hint and dematerialize so I could deal with my mother without worrying what he was thinking about what I was saying. Blast! Why is it my sentences become so unwieldy when I write about the Captain? Everything about him flusters me when threatened by any intrusion from the outside world.

"Mother," I sighed as the Captain pulled me back into his lap. Some things about mothers-in-law have not changed in 100 years. Even though she would never receive it, Daniel decided to send a less-than-subtle message about who was really in charge by fondling my breasts under my sweater.

I elbowed him, and a cup of coffee magically materialized on the desk. He laughed, picked me up and sat me down on the chair. Walking backwards, blowing me kisses in the air, he disappeared through the closed door like a beneficent potentate.

"No, it's okay. I was just editing an article." Silence. I took a deep breath.

"Not the article." It wasn't a question, not the way she enunciated so clearly, with the emphasis on the "the" article. "The article Marjorie suggested to one of my dear friends in publishing?"

"I'm sorry, but I write so many I can't keep them straight. What are you talking about?" Blast Marjorie Muir! Was she so alcoholic she couldn't remember everything that happened during her stay here?

"Dear, don't be coy. I heard it on best authority from the wife of one of the Inquirer's publishers that Marjorie told someone at the country club about the supposed ghost of Gull Cottage" – my mother can run on with the best of them (sentences, that is) – "and somehow the Lifestyle editor passed that along to Redbook."

Lingering silence this time. "Mother, I'm not privy to the particulars but yes, an editor at Redbook did ask me to write a chirpy little piece about the Ghost of Christmas present and what we all can learn from ghosts of Christmas past."

I laughed, perhaps a little too fakely, as I wrapped the telephone cord around my fingers. "And they're paying me so much for the piece I won't have to worry about rent through August."

This time, the sigh was on my mother's end. "Carolyn, if that piece runs, your father and I will be the laughing stock of the neighborhood. As will you. I know you value your privacy, dear, but some day you will give up this foolishness and will want to return to Philadelphia to remarry – well, sweetie, you just don't need this ghost business. No matter how light the fluff piece."

Predictably, thunder rumbled loudly, and even my mother could hear it.

"Oh dear, I hope you're not having thunderstorms this late in the year. I've booked a flight that arrives in Portland the day after tomorrow. Now before you say another word, I want you to know I haven't told your father anything about this. He thinks I'm coming up to help you shop for Christmas presents."

"Mom! I'm a little insulted that you think I've made up some nonsense about a ghost haunting Gull Cottage just so I can get an assignment from Redbook – "

"Dear Carolyn, that's not what Marjorie told me in confidence. If you're going to get so upset, then you need to know we're both very concerned about what living up there all alone has done to your, well, your sanity. Pretending to dance in front of the local elite with a spirit?"

Where was Captain Gregg? If ever there was a time for him to play with the phone lines, this was it. Then her last statement dawned on me. The ante was upped. Her story had quickly shifted from a narrative involving Marjorie telling someone at the country club to Marjorie speaking with her directly.

"You think I'm making up stories about ghosts?" I asked, with as much incredibility as I could muster. Then anger set in. I couldn't believe I even had to have this conversation with my mother. I took a deep breath. Nothing good could come out of this conversation, especially since my mother had footed all of my therapy bills. No doubt she was a little worried her investment had soured.

"Mom," I began. "Do you really believe everything that comes out of Marjorie's mouth?"

"No, Carolyn, but I do believe everything that comes out of Ralph's, and he confided in me that more than a few mothers refused to answer Jonathan's knocks on their doors Halloween night. He said he overheard Candy whispering about what the Captain would say about that. Now clearly, Carolyn, if the portrait of that man is having such a profound influence on you that even the children and their friends think there's a ghost, well, we need to assess what's going on and at least entertain the possibility that it might be time for you to return home and put an end to this nonsense."

"You have crossed a line in the sand with me, mother." I surprised myself. Five months of trying to have the best of both seen and unseen worlds caught up with me in one fell swoop. "I am tired of having my sanity questioned by everyone who thinks they know something about nothing simply because a sea captain died in my bedroom 100 years ago!"

"And you've crossed a big line with me, Carolyn. Now calm down! I am on your side. And I'm genuinely concerned. We're not going to argue about this over the phone. There's absolutely no reason for you to pick me up, either, I've chartered a limousine. I'll arrive just before dinner, dear, and we'll have a good chat then –"

She hung up. Daniel materialized by the telescope. So tall, and elegant. So real. "I can't even explain you to myself," I began haltingly. "Because it doesn't really matter to me, whether you're a ghost, or a ghost who can become human, or even a figment of my fevered imagination. You know we don't give a flip about what anyone thinks."

"M'dear, it's never going to be easy for us. No smooth sailing. Someone will always try to shanghai what we have. The only ports in this storm are your arms, and mine, should you choose to continue this voyage with me. We both know the destination."

We stared at each other, eyes locked. No words. He reached his hands out to me, but when I moved to take his, there was only emptiness. And a chill in the air. "This is who I really am, Carolyn Muir. That by some miracle of God I can actually touch you, it changes nothing, my darling. I am a spirit, an illusion – and none of the playful jokes and innuendoes or lies you tell can fundamentally change that."

"This is who you are, not what you are," I whispered in reply, my voice wavering.

"What am I then," he asked, his very essence shimmering in front of me. I could see the white curtains stirring behind him in the breeze.

"You are my lover, my everything, a father to my children. Even if you never materialize again. Even if you never had."

"Well, then, that settles matters once and for all," replied the Captain very briskly. "When your mother arrives, I shall inform her of my existence and ask for your hand in marrige."


	35. Chapter 35

Nov. 13, 1968

Actually, it did thunder. At about 4 a.m., I awakened to pale flashes of lightning and the ominous sotto voce of its aftermath. All of this veiled by a wall of snow and sleet hurling off the Atlantic. A storm the weatherman might predict but only a seaman of the Captain's caliber could really understand. I shivered, involuntarily, as I rose sans robe from the cocooning warmth of my down comforter to view the cold, spectacular tableau of the tempest.

Genial laughter floated up the stairs. The warm, life-giving smell of coffee beckoned me from below. Zombie-like, I reached for my robe and descended, careful to grasp the railing so as not to trip over the remains of my slumber.

Martha and the Captain were wide awake. Well, of course he was, but she was more alert than any human being had a right to be at this hour. "Are you breathing yet, dear?" she smiled. "Humph," was all I could muster as I brushed the hair from my eyes, yawning all the way to the stove. Then, I remembered.

"Martha, my mother –"

"I know, Mrs. Muir. Capt. Bly's told me all about it. Congratulations!"

"Congrat? –" was it so early I couldn't remember my own engagement? The Captain chuckled. "Too late – or, should I say early? -- to change your mind, my dear."

Martha stood and hugged me tightly, stroking my hair like she used to do when I was a teenager, seeking affirmation I never received from my mom and dad. "We'll talk about your mother later," she whispered into my ear. "This is the Captain's moment, and it's a whole heck lot more important than the broomstick your mother's flying in our direction."

Daniel took the cup from my hand and pulled me onto his lap, circling his arms around my waist. I surrendered gratefully, relaxing into the comforting warmth of his chest. My husband, I thought, and was rewarded with a surreptitious hug. "I'm not sure how long the marriage will last if you keep reading my mind," I thought back.

Carolyn?" Martha reached for my forearm. "Mrs. Muir? Do you think that will work? You'll come down the stairs, on Jonathan's arm, and will enter the parlor and meet the Captain and Claymore in front of the fireplace."

"I'm sorry," I replied, disengaging from the Captain's minf. I feigned a yawn. "Still coming to life, sorry Captain. That sounds lovely, Martha. Very, very romantic, too."

Tears stung my eyes before I knew they had formed. "This is really happening, isn't it?" I turned, squirming in Daniel's lap to face him squarely. He answered me with a kiss, and reached for the table.

"Does this look like a dream?" How could even I have missed it?

Nestled deeply into an old-fashioned, satin-cushioned ring box was a cabuchon emerald surrounded by pave diamonds.

"If you were awake, I'd go down on one knee and slide it onto your finger."

Martha sniffed back a few tears of her own.

"Oh, you're no slacker in the romance department, Captain."

"Since you haven't asked, you old harridan, I bought this ring in Bombay, from the estate of a local maharajah…" the Captain must have been close to tears himself. Bantering with Martha was one thing. Showing human emotion quite another.

While they bickered, I slid the ring over my own finger, wondering how a simple gold band could even fit under the size of such an incredible gemstone. As Martha rose to pour me another cup of coffee, Daniel kissed my neck.

"You know, you'll have to take that back off until we talk to the children."

Jonathan flung himself breathlessly into the kitchen three hours later. Usually a late riser like his mother, he was uncharacteristically wide-awake. "Mom, Captain! I had the bestest dream last night!"

Before I had a chance to reply, Candy chimed in: "How come he gets to walk you down the stairs!"

They crowded round me like puppies in a litter, jostling for attention. I wrapped my arms around them. "I take it you don't mind if the Captain asks you later for my hand in marriage?"

"The horse before the cart," Martha snorted.

I looked up. Sometimes I can feel Daniel materialize before I see him. "Madame, I give you my word of honor I have not uttered a single word nor invaded –" Martha looked sharply up. I held my breath. There was no reason to tell her everything.

Amidst the hugging, kissing, jumping up and down, hasty eating and pushing-out-the door of children to school bus, I forgot all about their prescient dream. Later, as I slid another sheet of paper into my trusty old typewriters, I froze.

"Captain, how did the kids know you proposed to me if you really didn't interfere with any dreams?"

"Madame," he began slowly and deliberately. "Perhaps there is a chance that, like their mother, they are capable of inferring some emotion and deliberation from my thoughts."

We stared at each other.

Horrified, I wondered what else they might pick up about future goings-on. This had to be the first time they'd sensed anything at all from the Captain. Jonathan was not very good at keeping anything to himself.

"So much for family secrets." I sighed. "Goodness, I hope Martha can't read your mind. Are we to have any privacy, ever?"

"Madame, you'll have to check with others of your friends with the incredible fortune to marry a dashing, 19th-century seaman!"

"Captain, they can neither hear nor see your thoughts unless we wish it!" I rejoined, albeit speculatively.

There are so many, many things we have yet to work out. Many, many difficulties in front of us. If I can kiss a ghost, I suppose my children can sometimes read his mind. Naturally. Supernaturally.


	36. Chapter 36

Nov. 14, 1968

"Do you think you're the only mortal who's seen a ghost?"

Mother wasn't even looking at me as she clasped Daniel's hand firmly in hers. "Enchante," she murmured to my equally charmed Captain, who towered over her in his best naval commander fashion.

"Well, Carolyn," she practically purred (a cliché I do not use lightly), "for once, I think you've chosen wisely."

Silently, I began counting to 10.

At two, the Captain kissed the back of her hand. At five, they kissed each other's cheeks in the phony European manner favored by her social set. By eight, I was so incredulous that I plopped abruptly onto the bed. At the count of 10, Captain Gregg and my mother remembered I was in the room.

"To the point, Mrs. Williams," the Captain purred suavely, with equal savoir-faire, "I think your beautiful daughter was more concerned her enchanting forbear might not be inclined to believe in me."

I opened my mouth, but no words came out. I simply stared. How had Martha and I gotten it so wrong? My mother hadn't flown to Gull Cottage on a broom – she'd materialized magnanimously right here in my bedroom, unannounced, just five minutes earlier. With nary a knock at the door. She'd simply barged on in, stared intently at me, and extended said hand to Daniel's. Introducing herself as though I were the invisible one.

"More to the point, my dear Captain," mother continued, her eyes holding his, "I think we both believe in you – completely."

With that, the Captain withdrew his hand. "Apologies, Madame," he said regretfully to my mother. "It is very difficult for me to maintain sustained corporeality with anyone other than Carolyn."

"Mom," I began with slight trepidation that flashed quickly into near tears and anger. "Daniel! If the two of you have finished fawning over each other, mother… Over the phone, you sounded, well, less-than-pleased with Marjorie's description of, how do they describe us in Schooner Bay? The ghost. The ghost and Mrs. Muir. We thought you were headed up here to try and get me back to Philly before the Muirs threaten to take the children away again."

The Captain's expression changed rapidly from studied obsequiousness to sheer terror. Martha hadn't forewarned him of that part.

"Dear, surely you realize that little telephone charade was purely intended for your eavesdropping father? When have you ever known me to fly so literally, so quickly to judgment? To upset myself with anything that comes out of the Muir's lips?"

"Besides, I'm guessing there is nothing haunted about what goes on in this very room at night!"

At this, Daniel's eyebrows shot up in horror. It would have been amusing if I hadn't had enough of them both.

"You'll excuse us, Captain?" This, from me. For a change, he vanished without a word or even a hint of his trademark reverberating laughter.

"How do you know he's not snooping, Carrie?" Need for theater ended, my mother closed the distance between us and sat on the bed beside me.

"Because he knows I can sense his sneaky little presence." I saw no reason to share with mom my ability to sense his emotions, and sometimes thoughts, too. "Please don't tell him my nickname is Carrie."

"Mom, do you really believe in ghosts? You aren't shocked?"

"Don't you think that was rather clever of me, dear?" she asked, completely ignoring me. "No matter how young or old, men cannot abide the thought their daughter's mother really knows what goes on in those virile little heads of theirs. Your Captain may be older than me, but he died young, without growing wiser, a virtual virgin to the married way of thinking. To me, he's but a boy, Carolyn. A very lovely, sincere, insecure, pathetically in-love-with-you young man."

She drew me to her. "Carrie, Carrie," she crooned softly, again using the special nickname reserved only for my most-vulnerable moments. "It doesn't matter whether I believe in ghosts. You do, and that's enough for me. I have it on very good authority anyway that higher command thinks very highly of your Captain." My eyes widened. She pulled away, and I noticed for the first time that our wide smiles are identical. Almost as an afterthought, I wondered whether she meant Martha or naval ghosts-of-her-own in historic Philly.

Mother's face was lovely in the firelight flickering from the hearth. As I begin to age, withering past the prime of my mid-thirties, I can only hope I look anything at all as enchanting as she does at 60.

"I wanted to meet your Captain, Carolyn. To see how the two of you interact. To see for myself the happiness on your face. To make sure the past is dead, and buried, that the real ghost who's haunted you all these years has finally been laid to rest. To see for myself you'd learned the truth about yourself. I wanted to know with certainty the bloody cycle of marrying cold, uncaring men stops with your generation. Jonathan and Candy can venerate their father from the safety of his grave. They need a benign father-figure. They need, too, the first mature love you've ever known."

I tried to interject, to defend Daddy in some way, but my mother touched her finger to my lips. "Yes, I know, dear. It's a little ironic that we're laying one ghost to rest with another while dissing the one specimen still alive. How wildly improbable is that? I'm still unsure as to how things really work in the afterlife, but I'm fairly certain of one thing: No mortal man could love you more."

Later, I learned she'd shanghaied Martha earlier in the day, after she who I thought was my loyal housekeeper dropped the kids off at school. Martha, the really only true friend my mother's ever had. Naively, I'd wanted my mother to draw the same conclusion I had just minutes after my own arrival at Gull Cottage – "what a magnificent man!"

But it doesn't work that way with mothers. They leave little to chance, even where their 35-year-old children are concerned. How did I get so lucky? Mom and Martha.

I was so indescribably happy that I began to blubber, exactly like the bride-to-be I suddenly am.

"I think we missed this part when you married Bobby," mother said. "I was so caught up in the fantasy-world of bridal gowns, so in – as our mutual psychoanalyst so charmingly puts it – in, denial about my own marriage, that I never looked out for you properly. Never protected you from the folly I brought you into when I married your father."

She glanced at my ring finger. "Of course I know you're engaged. I noticed the indentation. You pulled that ring off when you sat on the bed. I saw you. I could tell you were engaged to your Daniel just by the way he behaved, anyway. It was so hard not to laugh when he kissed my hand, mon cherie, but I knew I had to keep a straight face. He tried so hard!"

I shouldn't have been caught off-guard by the wave of indignation that burst suddenly in my head, assaulting my sensibilities.

"Madame! Now I will be unable to propose properly!"

"I think he's listening in now," I whispered to my mother. "Captain…"

"Then he'd damned better well materialize right here, right now, with a bottle of the house finest so we can toast this most proper and auspicious occasion properly. Oh, and bring Martha with you, too…Daniel. May I call you that?" Nothing ruffles my mother's feathers, unless she decides to let it.

Fortunately, we all were able to sober up before Mrs. Coburn dropped off Jonathan and Candy. The children rushed to Grandma Williams and her unpacked suitcase. The three of them headed off to the guestroom to unpack without any prodding on my part. Big announcements would have to wait. Martha retired to her room for a much-needed, après engagement celebration. Daniel pulled me into the alcove where, for the first time-ever, I made love holding onto a chart rack.

We are both virgins, I thought as I clung to the Captain's cherished possession for balance. One of us is dead and the other of us middle-aged, but we are both very, very young at heart.


	37. Chapter 37

Right after dinner, the wind picked up. With a glance, Captain Gregg stoked the glowing embers in the hearth into a roaring blaze. "'Tis a gale, we'll have soon, Madame," he advised a tad too formally, still playing to my mother. Daniel cast a sideways glance in her direction. She turned the page in her book then winked at me out of the corner of her eye. I stifled a smile. Martha peered out of the parlor's bay windows. "Captain Gregg, a gale to you is a blizzard to us. That's some nasty weather moving in. Candy and Jonathan please run and get the candles." By this time, the howling wind with its stinging mixture of sleet and snow was so loud we could barely hear her. Somewhere outside, a shutter thumped ominously against the house. "It's a nor'easter, isn't it Captain Gregg?" Jonathan inquired excitedly.

No sooner were the words out of "the lad's" mouth than we all perked up, as if by speaking the dreaded word, Jonathan had mustered all hands to deck.

Mom dispatched Candy to the guestroom, for her shawl. Jonathan the opportunist begged Martha for "hot, hot chocolate." I curled my feet up on the sofa and gratefully sipped whiskey-laced coffee. The coal-fired furnace struggled valiantly in the basement, but New England Power & Light soon gave up without a fight. The lights flickered off, came back on, and then died with a finality that sent me scurrying to the sea chests for the feather beds and down comforters. The kids scampered behind, whining the fireplace in their room wasn't hot enough to keep them warm. The Captain, to my chagrin, companionably agreed with them.

And so it was that four, instead of two of us, ended up in front of the fireplace in the master cabin. Mother deemed the children's room warm enough anyway, and curled up in Candy's bed for the night. Martha opted to pull out the cot and sleep in front of the parlor fireplace. The kids settled happily into down-filled sleeping bags on the leather sofas nearest the hearth in my room, their sleepy pink faces flickering in the light of the Captain's fire.

I kissed them good night. It wasn't long before Jonathan began to snore and Candy emitted the trademark yawn which always signals her descent into deep sleep.

"This was your idea," I reminded the Captain softly, as we tucked the blankets securely around the kids. "Now I get to be cold because you, my dear, will have to take your ethereal warmth right up to the wheelhouse. We can't sleep together with them here." We sat on the bed anyway, and his arm wound quickly around my waist. Daniel tried to slip his hand up my sweater until he remembered about Playtex bras. Undeterred, he reached for the waistband of my stretch pants. I closed my eyes and sighed, desirously, for a brief second. His fingers stretched lower, past the inconvenience of my underwear and almost into the dark wetness below.

"Captain." I exhaled softly with regret. I pulled him to his feet and we moved resignedly back to the hearth. I held my hands to the fire, trying to distract myself. The children were obviously sound asleep, but still… The Captain's arms quickly encircled my shivering body from behind. He nuzzled his face into my neck and the sensation of his lips and tongue at the base of my throat made it very hard for me to stand straight. I sagged against him slightly, and felt his arousal against my back. Daniel stopped. He buried his face in my hair. His arms tightened around my waist.

"There can be no turning back now, Carolyn." For a crazy moment, I thought he was talking about, well, a most inappropriate tryst in the soon-to-be nuptial bed. The wind continued unabated, battering the French windows with such force I reconsidered Candy's opinion about the drafts in her room. Daniel's arms tightened around me. The fire crackled loudly before one of the burning logs crashed onto the embers below. I turned to face him. Daniel smiled sadly. My eyes widened. "Why would you even say such a thing, Captain?" I whispered. A stifled cough, then the sound of a small body turning all-too-self-consciously over in a sleeping bag. Had to be Jonathan. Awakened by the log.

Daniel kissed me soundly on the mouth, his hands running up and down my back. "Madame, I think I'll turn in now." I stared at him. "What did you mean there's no turning back now? I'm not dragging you to the altar!" I pleaded silently. But his mind closed to mine. "Well, my beautiful bride-to-be, I suppose I'll have to head up to the Widow's Walk to cool off!"

"I bid you good night, then." He nodded in the direction of the couches, where two tow-headed children lay, suspiciously immobile. "Shall I awaken Jonathan and Candy at seven in the morning, then, to assist me in shoveling snow?"

Jonathan gasped. Candy groaned. Daniel winked, and left me without so much as even another kiss. Instantly, the room grew colder. What had he meant? I fumed. I'll follow him in a minute, I thought to myself. I lay down, waited patiently for the children's breaths to even out – and fell asleep myself. It was a very dark 2 a.m. when I awakened. The room was warm again. Daniel takes such good care of us. I smiled appreciatively at the ceiling.

Then I saw him. Seated at the foot of the bed, watching me. Self-consciously, I sat up and brushed my tousled hair out of my eyes. And reached for him. "Madame," he seemed so serious as he took my hand and kissed its palm. Aroused, I leant toward him, then --

A familiar stab of insecurity as I pulled my hand from his, remembering our earlier conversation. I propped myself up on the pillows and pulled the comforter up over my shoulders.

Silence.

"Daniel?" I queried, just loud enough to be heard over the unrelenting wind. Not for the first time I felt us sailing into more than just a storm.

"You think I'm steering you towards the shoals?" he answered my thoughts. "To founder on uncertainty and regret for daring to love? To leave you as your husband once left you -- "

I blinked, and he was beside me. Intensely focused blue eyes staring inquisitively, straight into my soul. Suddenly, I knew. "You didn't really realize did you, until tonight, that four other lives center around us, depend on us, on all of this working out?" I asked, my voice faltering. "It's not too late, if this isn't what you really want. A family and responsibilities, I mean. My charming, elegant, nosey mother." I smiled, but wanly, not bravely as I had intended. "It really isn't too late to turn around, we could go back to the way things were – "

Anything, I thought, not to have to leave him, to vacate Gull Cottage. We could make passionate love by night and be friends by day – or, just be friends. I would do anything necessary, I realized, to keep him in my life. To keep the children's lives on the even keel he'd brought to their tumultuous young lives. To the stability he'd added to mine.

I don't think I've ever felt so vulnerable in my whole life. Maybe that's what love really is, risking everything to offer oneself freely. "You don't have to marry me, just be with me."

"Oh, my darling." He pulled me into his arms and kissed me, chastely at first, then so ardently I could barely tell where his lips ended and mine began. "I would do anything to keep you in my afterlife. It's just that last night, in front of the fire, with the children behind us, I felt the full force of what we're undertaking."

"This is dead reckoning," he continued, referring to what I believe is sailor talk for determining the location of a ship without reference to the sun or stars. "There is no turning back, nor would I wish it so. I did not mean to frighten you, Madame.

I stroked his chiseled features, his lovely face, with my hand. "There was no turning back for either of us – ever – since that very first day you commandeered the station wagon and returned us to Gull Cottage." My voice wavered. "You turned the lights on, and the fires, and I knew you accepted us for better or for worse. I've never really looked back, Daniel. And I wouldn't have left, really, over the clam chowder Admiral. Even after Vanessa, before you wrapped the shawl around my shoulders…blast it Daniel, I will deny saying this if you ever tell the children, but we really do need a Captain aboard our ship."

He kissed me again, and I reached for him. He pushed me gently back upon the pillows.

"I fear I cannot drop anchor in the master cabin even in these wee hours of the morning due to my command presence as Jonathan and Candy's new father."

"I thought you could make anyone sleep – soundly, sir," I suggested. "Can't you sprinkle enough sand in their minds to make them oblivious to everything for at least five more hours, oh Captain of my heart?"

Daniel kissed my eyes. "There's always the bathroom," I murmured wickedly, seeking his mouth with mine. "We could –"

"Coffee, Mrs. Muir?"

It was Martha, at my bedside no less. I smelled the coffee and heard her voice from beneath layers of sheets and comforters. Blast! It was 9:30 in the morning.

"Time to get up, dear. We've a wedding to prepare for."

"I suppose there can be no turning back now."

"Wedding jitters?" Martha asked.

"Too early for jitters," I said, sipping Martha's strong brew. "Where's the Captain?"

"He sent me to wake you up, said something about responsibility and commitment. Did you kick him out last night?"

Martha misses nothing. Ever. "Be sure and tell Mother," I suggested with a smile, closing my eyes and savoring the aroma of strong coffee in the cold sea air still seeping through the windows.

"Moral obligations indeed," I thought to myself as Martha headed back down the stairs. "He put me to sleep right along with his other two moral considerations."

"Indeed, Madame." His voice burst into my thoughts followed, several seconds later, by a physical manifestation in the Master Cabin. "But our two moral dilemmas are pulling away in the car, as we speak, headed to Portland to order a wedding cake with their grandmother and her trusty sidekick, the ever-egregious Martha."

"Why Captain – does that mean they won't be headed back to port anytime soon?"

"Blast it woman! Why can't you ever let me chart a proper course?" He shed his jacket as he approached the bed. The Captain's turtleneck and pants would doubtless magically disappear next.

"This ship has sailed, oh Captain of my heart. It's time for me to get up and attend to nuptial preparations." I threw a pillow at him, and was not surprised when he allowed it to pass straight through him.

"That's a little disconcerting, don't you think?" I laughed, and jumped out of the other side of the bed. "As if I could make love with someone you can pass a pillow through! If we're going to be married, you'll have to learn to fight with dignity and honor!"

"Like this?" He rematerialized right behind me, and scooped me off my feet.

"Daniel, this is not one of our blasted stories, put me down. No blood and swash for you this morning!"

Of course, he didn't.

But he did leave me enough time to write this journal entry, the last before my improbable wedding tomorrow.

Out of this world! I believe the flower children now say.


	38. Chapter 38

There are many things I suppose I could write about my wedding day. No, I did not wear the gown mother bought for my wedding to Bobby – even though Gladys is the only person who's ever used it. No, I wasn't nervous. Not one bit. Yes, everything about the ceremony was glorious and beautiful (weather excepted). All eyes were on the groom, not the bride. Martha and mom virtually swooned over the Captain's naval uniform, although Martha confided in me later their tears were all for my happiness!

Throughout the simple ceremony, Jonathan only had eyes for his 'Captain-Dad' hero. Claymore was sweet but jumpy until, of course, Daniel gave him a sterling silver flask of 100-year-old brandy to calm his nerves. Everyone loved the Gaelic wedding band Daniel bought ("for you, my darling") well over 100 years ago in Cork. I've never been happier, or cried and laughed so much simultaneously. Daniel and I spent our first night in the Master Cabin without worrying about children, Martha or what they might think we're up to.

I wish I could say we enjoyed a night of unrivaled passion, but I was so worn out by the events of the last week I fell asleep in front of the parlor fire and barely remember Daniel carrying me up the stairs. "I told you she can't handle red wine," I vaguely remember Martha admonishing him. Let the record show, Daniel did not suffer gracefully in silence. Just before dawn, I dreamt of my first physical encounter with him, down on the beach. The one on the warm sand, just after Yoga. In my dream, I raised my hand, to keep the sun out of my eyes – and awakened to find my hand on Daniel's head, my nipple between his teeth. I moaned, and felt his other hand move upon my other breast. "Not without a kiss, a long and lingering one first," I warned, and in the next instant I was treated to the site of his glorious chest, his strong arms encompassing my shoulders, a ferocious look of love and majestic passion upon his face as he lowered his lips to mine.

That's all I care to write about the day and its aftermath. Some things pale on the page, and I prefer that my real moments of connection and love remain only in my heart, where they rightfully belong.

This, I journal for my posterity: It was Candy who gave me pause, the night before last. "Mom," she said, face downcast. "Are you sure this won't be like Dad? I miss him and I'm mad at him, both. What will you do if Captain Gregg starts to yell and be angry like Daddy used to?"

Startled, I pulled my hand away from hers. We were painting our nails in anticipation of the big day, and I inadvertently smeared her bright-red (her choice) polish.

"How much do you remember about your father?" I asked. I tried to nonchalantly swab the red streak off both our hands with nail remover-soaked cotton balls but felt I was being unfair to Candy. I put the cotton balls down, took her other hand in mine, and looked her straight in the eye. This needed to be sorted out so we could begin to form a new family.

"Not much, except that I think he loved me and used to play hide-and-seek in Grandpa's back yard. And that he made you sad a lot, and you cried when he yelled."

"Captain Gregg won't change, will he Mom?"

"Lass, I haven't changed in well over 100 years! I certainly have no intention of rearranging my attitudes to suit your mother's preferences. Argue with her, yes. Bicker over her feminine frippery? Aye. Yell at her in anger? Never. You have my solemn promise." He wiped a tear from Candy's face. "Do I look like a poodle to you?!"

I was piqued by the interruption, no matter how well-intended. I also vowed to find out, as soon as Candy left, whether he'd been eavesdropping or accidentally materialized and thought I'd seen him standing, just behind Candy.

Daniel bent before her, on one knee, and put his hand over both of ours. Candy's eyes widened. Daniel seldom touched either of the kids, physically. It was just too hard for him.

"I pledge my troth to both of the beautiful Muir women. To love you both unconditionally, without anger, and with all of my strength, forever. I will do everything within my not inconsiderable powers to become an excellent father and a most-attentive husband."

"Candy, no matter what else, you must remember that your father loved you very much. He will always be your father, and I have no intention of trying to replace the love you feel for him in your heart. "

He could have ended it there – and we all could have dabbed our eyes and gone back to painting nails.

Only Daniel continued, and, in doing so, closed a very special loop with my daughter.

"Candace, I suppose you might think it odd that your father is dead, and your mother is marrying another…ghost. If I were you, I'd feel as though I'd been abandoned twice. First, by a father who I can barely remember, except when he fought with your mother, and then a second time when he moved onto heaven and never got to be a ghost."

"Your father, I can assure you, loved you deeply. It was simply his time to move on, to heaven. Given a choice, I'm sure he would have preferred to remain here, on earth with his family. It is both a deep honor and a privilege for me to attempt to even try and replace him and, his importance in your life. As for your beautiful mother – "

"Captain Gregg, I know you'll never leave us. You can't, because, well, you're a ghost. You can't ever die again." This was Jonathan. Another interruption. "And we know you won't leave mom. We know she loves you 'cause of the way she smiles when you're here."

"Captain Gregg," Candy interjected. "If I tell you something do you promise you won't get mad?"

"You have my word as the captain of this ship, m'little dear."

"Jonathan and I want you to be our dad. One night, when we were going to sleep, we both felt you thinking about mom. I'm not sure. We thought it was a dream until the next morning. I told Jonathan about it and he said he'd dreamed that you and mom were kissing. We both felt kinda strange because when you stopped kissing her, you guys just hugged and me and Jonathan just felt really good, like we were safe."

"Told you so," I looked thoughtfully at Daniel. The kids' expressions remained unchanged. Evidently they were not attuned to smaller mental pitter-patter.

"So that's how we know that you should be our dad," Jonathan continued. "We know you really love our mom. Martha says . . ."

"That's enough, Jonathan," I smiled wanly. "Let's leave it at that and all head downstairs for some of the brownies Grandma made! Candy, we'll finish those nails later. Jonathan, run and wash the dirt off your face. You too, Scruffy!"

"Run along children, and let me have a quick word with your mother," Captain Gregg advised. As they scampered out the door, Daniel gave it a look. It swung closed, all by itself, and I heard the lock turn.

"My dear, there is one final item of business before we join our children in brownies," Captain Gregg began. I snaked my arms around his waist, hoping that little item had to do with my lips.

He embraced me, then whispered in my ear: "You did not pledge you would never become angry with me!"


	39. Chapter 39

Nov. 29, 1968

I should write about what we've written: Daniel and I have just finished the Redbook article for the women-who-lunch. Finishing the piece required a predictable knockdown, drag-out, with no hint of newly wedded bliss to our connubial sparring. "Madame……." "Ooooooh, Captain Gregg!" "Not on my watch, Mrs. Muir."

Daniel thinks I erred on the side of mistletoe and eggnog. I think he brought too much testosterone to the Christmas table. Our arguments over the spirit of Christmas Past and the reality of Christmas present were, shall I say, very spirited!

Maybe tomorrow, I'll stick a copy of the piece in my daybook. Not now! I quite happily bid adieu to our first major collaboration, watching Eldridge the postmaster stamp it first-class and slip it into the time-worn brass lips of Schooner Bay's postal slot. I wonder whether they used pony express or ships to take the mail to Boston back in the Captain's day? Somehow, the sheer distance involved in separating Schooner Bay from Boston, New York and Philadelphia by either horse or clipper is comforting. It's the one thing air travel hasn't erased for we down easterners. Contented isolation.

At the moment, I'd rather dwell on the aftermath of the Muir/Gregg nuptials. We have everything we could possibly have dreamt of…legality, in the eyes of the children; my mother's blessing; Martha's utter complicity; ourselves; a nascent family; and last, but not least, my happiness.

So why does everything so ordinary, just a week and a half after I said, "I do?"

Life between the sheets has been no disappointment. In fact, a mere glance from Daniel sends desire tugging at my undergarments. He's told me; finally, he will no longer put the children to sleep early just so we can retire to the master cabin at our convenience. "Madame, even I must admit there should be limits to my certain powers. We cannot send the wee ones to bed too early, every night, just to suit the justifiable desires of our hearts."

Hearts? Inescapable lust! When he materializes, my lips twitch and I swear the hairs on my arms raise in anticipation. I remember, too easily, the feel of his lips on my mouth, throat and breasts and must close my eyes, and inhale sharply. "Mom?" Jonathan asks, mistaking my behavior for deep consideration of his latest's request. "Is it okay, then? Can I go to my friend's after school?"

Passion is not the issue. Reality is. I've married a ghost. A ghost who longs for the every day denied him in the after-life. A family. Routine. A glamorous (his thinking, not mine) wife. Some respectability, at least in his own mind. Acknowledgement of him, for who and what he is.

Sounds so simple, but in actuality it's been so incredible. In approximately six months, I, my children, Martha and my immediate family (Daddy says he's mad because we didn't invite him) have accepted my most implausible suitor. The incredible's become the mundane. A spirit, materializing then disappearing in and out of all our lives as it suits him. A ghost who can be touched, but only by me. Christian concepts of the afterlife turned inside-out. Traditional holidays like Halloween upended by our special status as Captain Gregg's family.

All for those cornflower-blue eyes. I would do it a thousand-times over.

"Mrs. Muir," Martha began this morning as we both smoked just outside the kitchen door, shivering in our wool coats. "You've got everything you want. The question now is, what do you do with it? How do you incorporate magic and spiritual hijinks into our boring, daily lives?"

Incorporate? Martha uses the biggest words, sometimes.

"Why, there's nothing boring about my wife, Martha." Predictably, as if on-cue in a TV sitcom, Daniel materialized. "To the contrary. I'm here to make sure absolutely nothing boring or humdrum comes of her temporal existence on my watch."

Martha sputtered with laughter, almost knocking both our coffees off the patio railing.

"That's what I'm thinking, Captain. With you around, it's hardly smooth sailing for Carolyn. But look at it from her perspective. She's got to figure out how to be madly in love with a ghost without letting anyone else in on the secret. Jonathan and Candy obviously can't talk about you at school or, to their friends. I think Mrs. Muir here realizes maybe we're just in the calm before the storm. Ordinary for us, dear, is such a good thing!"

Dead reckoning, I think Daniel called it. Becalmed and trying to figure out where to go and what to do without knowing where you are or what you're doing.

I'm scared. Maybe that's why I feel so calm. It's the calm before the not-so-proverbial New England winter storm. We're happy to live with our new reality. How will the rest of our happy little New England town feel?


	40. Chapter 40

Dec. 3, 1968

Martha squeezed my arm as we entered the school gymnasium. "Stop seeing things that aren't there," she hissed through pursed lips. "You read too much into everything." Necks craned towards the door. I felt 30 sets of eyes burning directly into mine. Self-consciously, I adjusted the scarf around my neck. No need to offer direct proof of something everyone could read a lot into.

The PTO meeting kicked off exactly at 4 p.m.

Mrs. So-and-so and Mrs. Hassenhammer droned mercilessly about financing efforts for the new library. Fifth-grade counselors spoke about the need to prepare for honors courses at the junior high level. Mr. Hampton got carried away about the importance of protecting Schooner Bay youth from hippies, drugs and rock-n-roll.

Martha, honorary co-chair of the PTO's 1969 Schooner Cooks for Schooner Kids cookbook, waxed eloquently about the importance of healthy after-school snacks -- then offered to share her special cookie recipes after the meeting. Claymore added his two cents about the Chamber's Christmas essay contest. After a brief budget presentation by another parent I've yet to meet, we headed to the refreshments table.

The first thing I ran into in the coffee line was Claymore's big chin dimple. "Mrs. Muir," he pulled me aside, almost apologetically. "I'll get you a cup of coffee in a minute. But we need to talk. Here. Where Spookface would not be caught, well, you know."

"Yes, Claymore," I smiled, taking a surreptitious visual survey of the ladies in the line behind me. "Of course."

He drew me directly into the cafeteria kitchen just behind the gym. "Your mother, Mrs. Muir. Mrs. Williams. When she was here, well, she made certain subtle inquiries to the Schooner Bay Historical society. Deke told me. She wanted to know all about the Greggs' early history in Schooner Bay. She told Mrs. Grover she was doing research for one of your articles, or some such thing."

I already knew about this. Mom asked me for permission before setting out. It was one thing for her to be completely open-minded about my marriage to a ghost – but history and lineage are everything in Philadelphia. My mother could no more resist the dusty archives in Schooner Bay's city hall than she could the lure of her own pedigree, already traced to the wrong side of William Penn's sheets (and I won't want to hear about that when the Captain finds out). Still, I've learned it doesn't do to reveal too much to Claymore, too early.

"Yes?" I answered demurely, though I doubt Claymore was fooled.

"Carolyn," he leaned forward. "I hope you don't mind if I call you Carolyn, just this once, but somehow, in addition to being your landlord, I do feel a little more responsible for you, now that you're my aunt, so-to-speak. This doesn't have anything to do with our fiduciary relationship. I mean as your landlord –"

"Claymore! That never crossed my mind!"

"I mean, I could still raise your rent in July, and all that, but since you're family now, I thought you should know – and I'm sure she meant it lightly – your mother joked to Mrs. Grover that since Daniel Gregg was virtually part of her family now, she wanted to know more about the Greggs and . . ."

This is where I lost track of Claymore's conversation and any idea of what to do next.

Pennsylvania is not part of New England, a point of mutual satisfaction to both Philadelphians and Bostonians alike. It also means Mrs. Grover was not inordinately happy with a Philadelphia Brahmin, so-to-speak, prowling around Yankee archives for reasons not entirely clear to local bluebloods. Pedigrees are very important in both of their worlds. In a very strange sort of way, I thought, it was as if two mothers-in-laws were dancing askance around each other, trying to decide if the Muirs and the Greggs were good enough for one another. Neither Mrs. Grover nor my mother meant any of this lightly or, in the case of my mother, as a joke.

"Claymore! Spare me the historic record. What did Deke have to say about contemporary history?"

"Mrs. Muir, well, it gets very interesting. Mrs. Grover told your mother she was very pleased to know about your December magazine piece and that you are like family now, here in Maine where, you know, it takes at least 150 years to be considered 'local.' Well, your mother said it takes at least 200 years in Philadelphia and one thing led to another and then your mother said, 'Well, when Carolyn's piece is published in mid-December, and everyone learns about her real Christmas spirit' Mrs. Grover dropped her teacup right on her prized Oriental rug, mouth agape.

"Carolyn, if I might, it gets worse. That night, Mrs. Grover made several phone calls and found out your mother ordered two bouquets from the florist – one with white roses and the other with daisies. Oh, and a corsage for Jonathan. It's terrible, Mrs. Muir. When that article appears – "

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Mrs. Grover's designated surrogate, Mrs. Post, heading in my direction.

"Claymore, how lovely," I beamed. "Thank you so much for the information. I've got to run, now. Please give Martha and the children a ride home for me. I've got a meeting in Keystone to run to."

And I fled. Home. To this journal. To prepare for the worst. Public humiliation has always been an art form in Calvinist circles. I am about to find out what Schooner Bay really thinks of its Gregg dynasty, seafaring past, errant ghost and strangely isolated writer.

I thought Daniel would be angry at the inadvertent yet direct intrusion to our privacy and affront to my Philadelphia credentials.

"My dear," he intoned instead, kissing first the inside of my hand and then, knowing what it would do to me, the inside of my wrist, "none of this would be happening if you weren't so beautiful. Everyone's quite anxious to learn more about the Princess Grace lookalike who stole the heart of New England's most eligible bachelor."

I insisted that my looks aren't everything he thinks they are, but Daniel chose to overlook my trepidations and simply held me for several minutes, rocking me gently in his arms, his left hand gently stroking my hair.

"There is one bright side to our local controversy," he suggested, finally releasing me as we heard Martha and the kids spill from Claymore's ancient car. "We shan't be run out of town. You, my dear, are most certainly no witch!"

Despite myself, I shuddered, well aware of 17th-century Maine practices of burying witches under piles of rocks until they confessed whose consorts they really were.

When you are married to a ghost, if you embrace the supernatural, try to overlay its rules onto the rational and every day, life does become very much like the fog in 'Dark Shadows.' You never know what you might bump into, and nothing every looks the same.

I wrote, just days earlier, of our new reality. What is it, really, in this new world of shadows? Are we really our own trope, as Daniel and I joked once, upon the beach, or are we headed into gothic territory?


	41. Chapter 41

Dec. 5

My 'Christmas spirit' article hasn't hit the newsstands yet. The magazine publishers decided to hold up on publication after Mattel pressed for a last-minute advertising insert that changed the signature count . . . which resulted in my last-minute commission from New York via Philly.

Schooner Bay's waiting with bated breath. Not much happens here so drama is always interior, with the singular exception of my arrival at Gull Cottage. I have become a plot device in the 100-year debate over the alleged haunting of Gull Cottage. And, a cipher. When I sip coffee at the drugstore counter, does my surreptitious smile indicate an invisible conversation? Or, am I an outsider and opportunistic writer capitalizing on the mother lode of all fictional propositions? Perhaps a smile is just a smile. Maybe I am all of this, and more to the people here. If he never existed, the ghost of the ghost of Capt. Daniel Gregg would haunt me, following me unbidden around Schooner Bay until the day I die. Is that a trope?

This morning, covered in inky blue from printing third-grade exams in the teachers' workroom, I overheard several mothers holding court with Mr. Hampton's secretary in the adjacent office.

"Surely," countered the poor woman, "Mr. Hampton would say something if it continually thundered-and-lightening'd for no apparent reason up there. I've heard nary a word about the weather on the cliff. Mrs. Muir is a lady, a very genteel widow. That's all I've got to say on the matter. She's also a devoted volunteer."

Mrs. Grainger skittered out the door, leaving the others to their murmurings. She doesn't know I'm back here. She just wants to get away. There is a moment's silence before the nattering begins.

"A very devoted mortal mistress, if Mrs. Coburn is to be believed," said one of Mrs. Coburn's friends. "She says no woman sashays up a flagstone walk like that unless there's a man watching!"

Giggle. Giggle.

"It would take someone very experienced in the boudoir to keep a beautiful woman like Carolyn Muir confined to that rickety mess of a house, writer's privacy or not," suggested another.

Whisper. Whisper then, loud enough for me to overhear again:

"What if they can't touch? If he does exist, he's a ghost after all. Maybe she's in desperately in love with him because she wants to but he can't really –"

"Touch, like your husbands?" I stood, ink-smeared hands on hips, determined to upend at least some of their gossipy braggadocio. Dead silence ensued, if I may. "Ladies, I am proud of who I am, of where I live, and, of the fact I support myself with my own career. And that satisfied smile I've also heard you discuss – let's just say I am a very happy woman with two wonderful children whose friends repeat everything their parents say.

"Fortunately for you, I have more common sense, which is why it pains me to even mention my incredible ear for local dialect. I am certain that my portrayal of each of you in the December issue of Redbook is entirely accurate."

With that, I sallied (sailed?) forth to the drugstore, where the ghost of a smile lingered yet again on my carefully lipsticked-lips. I sipped fresh coffee, waiting for Martha's prescription to be filled.

My immortal inamorato materialized as I sat on the stool, watching the druggist mix another chocolate malt.

My ghost is very much like any mortal man, I thought, twirling to face him directly. Captain Gregg can't stand it when I'm gone for very long. He doesn't mean to snoop – who amongst us wouldn't move so easily around, in such fashion, were it possible? At least he has the grace to make himself visible.

"Madame." He reached for my shoulder and rubbed my arm gently. One day I will ask him how he just knows where I am. I smile broadly, but nod genially at the pharmacist working the soda fountain. Only he's staring in the direction of the stool where the Captain now perches. The ice cream scoop falls to the floor with a loud clattering noise.

"It arrived in this morning's mail," the Captain explains apologetically, reaching for the magazine in his pocket. "I thought you'd appreciate the opportunity to review the piece before Brewer Stone, Rph, places it on the newsstand yonder."

"Christmas spirit," I whisper inadvertently. Mr. Stone nods, speechlessly.

"Who left this lying on the seat?" I recover quickly. "Mr. Stone, would you like me to autograph this for you? I wasn't aware the magazine had made it to the racks."

He blinks, wordlessly. I don't try to defend my actions with my usual hapless smile or shoulder shrug. After all, the Captain's arm is now draped around my shoulders. "In the spirit of Christmas." I reach for the pen beside my bill.

Captain Gregg lounges uncharacteristically on the bed as I enter the master cabin that night. I can hear the lock click as he bolts the door behind me with nary a glance. "Contingency plan, m'dear." I remove my robe as he pulls the comforter down before wrapping me securely in his arms. "Stay with me, please, until I fall asleep," I murmur. "Really and truly, Daniel."

There is no mercy in the winter Atlantic, but here, in our sanctuary above the sea, the tide is a muffled roar, not a merciless force of nature, and its steady sound lulls me quickly into light sleep. Rather pleasantly I dream there is a forefinger and a thumb stiffening a nipple through my nightgown. Something stiffens at my back and I sigh with pleasure, pleasantly if only marginally awake, and press my bottom firmly against him in response.

"Carolyn, you said until you fell asleep. Your explicit orders. Inured, as I am, to the dreadful elements without – "

" – I nonetheless consider it my duty to remain here, by your side…" I interrupt, aroused. "Until I am sufficiently wet – I mean warm!"

"Madame!" He rolls me over, and kisses me lightly before replacing his fingers with his mouth. I gasp, my hands in his soft, wavy hair. His nightclothes vanish as we set sail on another nightly voyage of passionate exploration. With Daniel, this is no Harlequin cliché. There is always a surprise, a new discovery in every aspect of our lovemaking. I pull his head to mine and soon lose any sense of where he begins, and I end. I feel him pull away. A moan escapes my lips as he brushes my inner thigh first with his beard, then tongue, seeking his most intimate prize.

"I've never done that for any other woman."

"I'll still respect you in the morning, Captain." Secretly, I vanquish all my jealous thoughts about the Kathleens and Vanessas of years-gone-by.

Now I am fully awake, sipping whiskey in front of the fireplace, comfortably ensconced in the Captain's arms yet again. Only this time we are preparing to review our article, line by line. Living with a writer, Daniel has caught on to the power of the printed word. Sublime, is the word he uses to describe the experience of seeing our collaborations in their offset form.

"Christmas spirit – indeed!" reads the headline. We didn't write that. The copy editor did. But the women of Schooner Bay will think me guilty-as-charged as they pore assiduously through Daniel's and my most public collaboration. Looking, no doubt, for confirmation of my not-too-idle boast about an ear for dialogue.

But the joke is on me. The spirit, in fact.

"What!" I exclaim, my face reddening as I slam the article down, turning awkwardly in the Captain's arms. "I didn't write this!"


	42. Chapter 42

Dec. 6

"Did you really call him a son-of-a-bitch?"

Martha snorted, disgustingly so. I waited, but when coffee failed to dribble from her nostrils as I surely thought it would, I lowered my own cup as calmly as I could onto the kitchen table. Had I? Damn him. The Captain felt compelled to share that, too. Was there anything at all private left between us?

"England can keep Charles Dickens." The magazine laid splayed open, in front of me. "Here in Schooner Bay, we have (a) real Christmas spirit, not allegorical warnings of the past, present and future for a meagerly man.

"No transformation, no sudden epiphanies needed. The ghost of Captain Daniel Gregg is much more than last century's living sea captain, once deemed New England's strongest man. 'Nay,' as he would say, were he to materialize to be interviewed for this article, 'wasn't it you, Mrs. Muir, who once described me as a magnificent man?'

"But getting back to Christmas in our quaint Currier and Ives…"

Martha nodded in my direction but hastily stood, flipping a dishtowel over her shoulder. "Think I'd better answer the phone, Mrs. Muir. It's been ringing all morning."

Somebody had materialized right behind me. So did the wrath I'd felt last night. Right within me. I hurled my coffee cup at the kitchen sink. It failed to shatter.

"You son of a bitch!" I sputtered, furious. "You would deprive me of even the satisfaction of breaking your mother's everyday china!"

I spun on my heels, last night's fury still proverbially unspent, and raised my hand to slap his face. He caught my wrist with supernatural speed.

"Ah, Madame. Try to keep things in perspective. As John Burroughs, one of my contemporaries, so elegantly wrote in my favorite essay: One resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this: To rise above the little things."

"Little things? Have you lost your incorporeal mind? You've single-handedly destroyed everything we've worked so hard to build, all of the privacy and intimacy we've craved, for what? To make you look good, to make me look like some sort of zany necromancer? This makes that ghost-lover playground drivel look like nothing!"

How had I been so wrong, a second time? The way he was acting made me even more afraid. At that instant I felt like an idiot for even worrying about falling into gothic tropedom. He didn't love me at all. Worse, how could I love someone who could betray me like this?

"Mom! Captain! All of the kids think it's really neat about the Captain and everything!" Usually Candy has more common sense and intuition. Not this time. She rushed into the kitchen, giddy with glee, riding on the same rising tide of uneasy excitement as the rest of Schooner Bay. Irrationally, I wished she'd seen me raise a hand to her new father.

"Yeah, everyone's saying they knew about Captain Gregg all along, but didn't want to scare us," Jonathan chimed in, slamming his lunch box on the floor. "Captain Gregg, we can do stuff together at Cub Scouts and everything! No more secrets!"

Without warning, and I know of no other way to describe this, time stopped. Jonathan and Candy froze where they were. In the hall, Martha stood motionless, the receiver at her ear. Tears spilled over my eyelashes. I was so angry I was sad. And mad that I was sad. Trapped, too, in this little pocket of time Daniel had carved out in this tempest of his own making.

"Don't touch me," I hissed as he reached for me. "I don't even want to know why. I will never rise above this little thing."


End file.
